Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

QUESTIONS (see “QUESTIONS AND REPLIES”).

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, at the outset I should like to associate myself with the tribute which the hon. the Minister paid to his predecessor. I had the honour of being one of those who represented the Opposition at the funeral of the late Minister Basie van Rensburg. I was particularly impressed by the standing he had among his followers and friends in the Free State, and also by the high tribute which the hon. the Prime Minister paid to him, as a colleague, on that occasion.

At the same time I associate myself with the kind words and the tribute paid to the late Mr. Mike Strauss, the former Postmaster General. He held the reins during what was virtually the most difficult time in the Post Office, and he was also in charge during the important period of the change-over to greater independence. I want to join the hon. the Minister in wishing our new Postmaster-General, Mr. Louis Rive, everything of the best in the difficult task he has.

In addition, I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister on this occasion, this being the first Budget he has presented. But it will not be taken amiss of me if I stop right there, because, as far as the Post Office is concerned, I do not think we have ever had such an extremely miserable document as we have here this afternoon.

†Mr. Speaker, I believe that, compared with all the previous Budget Votes on the Post Office and compared with the previous Budget, we have here the harshest series of Post Office measures in the history of the country. It makes no difference that the hon. the Minister, quite properly, announced that these measures were coming at the end of last year. We must face it that we have here the biggest increase in tariffs ever announced on a single occasion. Sacrifices have been called for, rightly, from the staff. Heaven knows they have been working hard. All honour to them from the depths of our hearts. But after those sacrifices, is this the only use the hon. the Minister can make of their dedication? The hon. the Minister is increasing tariffs by R50 million. That is more than the total revenue of the Post Office in the year 1955. It is more than the total income tax paid by all the income-tax payers in South Africa in the war year of 1940.

I shall go into the details of what the hon. the Minister is doing to the country tomorrow. He will be remembered as the Minister who increased the ordinary letter rate by 60 per cent, namely from 2½ cents to 4 cents, thereby taking almost R10 million out of the pockets of the ordinary citizens of South Africa. He will be remembered as the man who increased telephone tariffs again, after quite recent increases, thereby taking another R15 million from the ordinary users of telephones in South Africa; the man who increased telephone rental from R18 to R24 per year, i.e. by 33⅓ per cent. These increases I regard as grotesque after the Post Office has shown a profit during this financial year of more than R30 million. The hon. the Minister knows that if he had not increased these tariffs, even apart from the fact that he has to pay many millions of rands in regard to the increased salaries and wages in the Post Office, he would still have made a profit this year of another R30 million. Why then these huge increases? Why this additional R50 million? The hon. the Minister expects a surplus of R77 million in the coming financial year. That is not good business; it is exploiting the public of South Africa.

All this is being done in the face of the worst telephone shortage, despite the percentage figures of the hon. the Minister, in the history of this country. There is a shortage of more than 114 000 telephones today. The hon. the Minister spoke of a policy of giving a 70 per cent service to 100 per cent of the people instead of 100 per cent service to 70 per cent of the people. Indeed, he is only giving less than a 70 per cent service to only 70 per cent of the people.

The hon. the Minister in his Budget statement admitted that these increases in tariffs will have incalculable effects on the economy of the country. He has admitted that these services are bad and I shall deal further with that tomorrow. The effect on the cost of living, on production and on commerce will be cumulative. This amount of R50 million can be inflated to more than four times this figure in additional costs to this country.

I say that all this is part of the economic conspiracy of this Government against the ordinary man in South Africa. It is part of that cruel economic doctrine which says that one can only stop inflation by almost bringing the economy to a standstill, creating unemployment and misery until the county comes crawling on its knees. As it is customary to take time to consider a budget of this nature before giving full reply, we would like to have 24 hours to digest the indigestible and to deflate what can only inflate. We warn the hon. the Minister that we shall not let him off lightly. In view of this crisis Budget I therefore move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, the Bill before us, as amended in the Committee Stage, introduces important amendments of the principal Act, that is the Act dealing with publication and entertainment control. Firstly it extends the operation of the Act to South-West Africa without any reason having been given in this House for the rejecting of existing legislation which is operative in the territory of South-West Africa. Secondly, the Bill prohibits pre-censorship exhibition of films, except to a very restricted group. Thirdly, the Bill now provides that the board may restrict the showing of a film to persons belonging to specified groups and no longer to a specified race. Fourthly, it restricts representations which may be made to the Minister or to the board regarding the passing or approval of any film to a manner which is to be prescribed by regulation. Fifthly, it excludes from the Act, as it is applied to South-West Africa, certain provisions of the principal Act, which are based on race and consequently establishes double standards within the Republic and the territory of South-West Africa. It is intended to have discrimination and the curtailment of exhibition rights in South Africa which will be based on race or be restricted to race groups, whereas a similar provision will not be applied in South-West Africa. Sixthly, it extends the board’s powers to include the establishment of an inspectorate. This will be an inspectorate which will have the power to enter upon premises in order to search and to confiscate. This is a right which infringes upon the right which was until now reserved for Police officers only and not for inspectors, or cultural detectives, as they have been referred to in the course of the debate on this Bill. This Bill further extends the powers of the board to censor live shows and to censor theatrical performances in part, and not as has been done previously, to ban them in toto or not at all. It therefore opens up a new area of activity for this board which will result in the imposition of group restrictions on audiences of legitimate theatre in South Africa. In essence and intent the Bill before us is designed and intended to and will in effect give greater powers of control to the Publications Control Board and will eliminate the aspect of public opinion. I want to stress that in our view it will militate against the development of public approval and public co-operation in the activities of control, while it will at the same time entrench the rights of the Control Board to arrive at decisions for which no reasons will be given or can be requested. These decisions will be arrived at without any indication to the public as to the particular mental processes which have resulted in such decisions being arrived at. We cannot and will not support the Third Reading of this Bill.

During the Second Reading debate we on this side made our attitude towards the control of publications and films clear. I would not reiterate that attitude at this stage to the House were it not that Government members during the course of that debate have found it necessary to misinterpret and to misrepresent the views of this side of the House as regards the question of control. Suggestions have, for example, been made that we are in favour of unrestricted publication and that we are in favour of the encouragement of unrestricted permissiveness in our literary and entertainment world. The hon. the Deputy Minister went so far as to suggest that we of the Opposition are indifferent to the security of the State or to the spiritual wellbeing of the people of South Africa. This is a totally unwarranted suggestion and I trust we will have no more of this misinterpretation, because if it is further misinterpreted after this debate it can only be attributed to misrepresentation of the views of this side of the House. Consistently since 1963, when the principal Act was introduced, until today we have repeatedly stated firstly, that we are opposed to publications which are pornographic or harmful to public morals, secondly that we are opposed to publications which are blasphemous and, thirdly, that we are opposed to publications which are subversive to the maintenance of law and order or to the safety of the State. We have stated over the years, as we stated in 1963, that we are not opposed to legislation directed towards control in these fields. It has been our view that legislation should be specific in its terms in the definition of objectionable matter and that control can best be achieved by the imposition of harsh criminal sanctions against infringements rather than by an extension of the system of censorship. We have said that severe penalties should be imposed upon persons who contravene such a specific code. The code must therefore be specific and the norm must be understood by the public at large.

If I may, I would like to remind the House of the provisions of section 6 of the principal Act, which is now being extended to South-West Africa. Under section 6 there is a definition as to when a matter shall be deemed to be indecent, obscene or offensive or harmful to public morals. It is an explicit definition. So, when the question arises whether a matter is indecent, obscene, offensive or harmful to public morals, that matter shall be deemed to be indecent or obscene if, in the opinion of the court, it has a tendency to deprave or to corrupt the minds of persons who are likely to be exposed to the effect or influence thereof. Secondly, it is offensive to the public morals if in the opinion of the court it is likely to be outrageous or disgustful to persons who are likely to read or see it. Thirdly, according to the important paragraph (c), it shall be deemed to be harmful to public morals if in the opinion of the court it deals in an improper manner with murder, suicide and various other listed items. In paragraph (c) of that definition, emphasis is laid on the improper manner of portrayal, whether it be in writing or in a film. By inference the portrayal of the factual, but unpalatable aspects of life must remain. It could never, by any stretch of imagination, happen that we should have a type of censorship in secret embodying the kind of control which is now envisaged in so far as this amending Bill is concerned. Unfortunately, there are unpalatable aspects of life. Lawlessness, prostitution, divorce and marital infidelity should not be withheld from the public. They are facts of life, and should not be withheld unless the portrayal of these factual aspects of life is improper. Even the inevitability of death may not be portrayed in an improper manner. Our courts of law have found no difficulty in the interpretation of these rules where they have been called upon to do so. I would remind you, Sir, of the approach of Mr. Justice Snyman in 1966. I think it is an approach which we on this side of the House appreciate. I believe it is the approach that should be adopted. Mr. Justice Snyman said:

Unfortunately, the number of successful appeals against the decisions of the Control Board leads one to the inevitable conclusion that the judgment of the board is too narrow. It is too prudish and it is not within the contemplation of Parliament and the legislation which has been before us. The Bill before us contemplates not only an extension of the powers of the board, but as I have already indicated, the establishment of an inspectorate. It also entrenches the present undesirable secrecy which surrounds the activities of the board.

Control of publications deals with a fundamental liberty—the liberty of the individual citizen to read and enjoy the books and periodicals which are available and to see the films that are produced. Control being a limitation, a curtailment of that liberty, must be exercised with discretion and with unassailable justification. The Control Board can only operate effectively when it operates openly, when its decisions are acceptable to the majority of our people. I do not think there is any doubt that the vast majority of South Africans are persons of high moral standards who are opposed to pornographic, blasphemous or subversive publications. The support of that mass of people can only be obtained when the operations of the board are in the open and open for inspection by, and explanation to, the general public.

The film industry overseas is, I understand, passing through the stage where objectionable productions were the run of the day. From what one reads one can conclude that there is an unquestionable change to a better type of production and that the public is seeking out that type of entertainment which can be regarded as more wholesome. This change has been brought about not through harsh measures, like that of censorship with the object of withholding from the public a knowledge of matter that is objectionable. This change has come about as a result of the fact that public opinion has turned towards seeking what is regarded as a better class of art, whether in music, literature or productions on the stage. And this revolt will continue. The Bill we are dealing with, however, does not allow any scope for the development of public opinion, except uninformed public opinion. That is so because the bases of the decisions of the board are concealed from the public. As I see it, this Bill will only antagonize public opinion, firstly because of the element of secrecy and, secondly, because of the introduction of this new corps of inspectors. The board ought to be aware of the fact that the majority of vociferous complaints about publications are unfounded. Let me remind the House that the Minister in reply to a question of mine told me that during 1970 109 private individuals and organizations made submissions to the board—in other words, 109 private individuals and organizations considered certain publications to be objectionable. But of the 109 objections only 35 were upheld by the board while 74 were not regarded as justified. One therefore finds that there exists a vociferous minority which desires to create the impression that there is a vast amount of objectionable publications of various categories whereas when the complaints are judged, as has been done in these particular cases, it is found that such an impression was unjustified.

In the circumstances we cannot see any justification for this measure. In fact, we believe that the hon. the Deputy Minister will be rendering a service not only to writers and playwrights but also to our film industry and to the legitimate theatre, to the entire South African nation in fact, were he to undertake not to proceed with this measure and instead to review the practical application of the principal Act. He should take the whole system into review, now that it has been in operation for 8 years. He should then come forward with such amendments the necessity of which I am sure he has become aware in recent months.

But there is one final matter I want to raise with the hon. the Minister, a matter on which I believe the public ought to have an authoritative statement from the hon. the Deputy Minister. In the Press reports on the debate on this measure thus far there have been signs of confusion in the minds of the general public as to what exactly the Deputy Minister contemplates ought and ought not to be published or exhibited in private. In this connection I have two questions I want to put to the hon. the Deputy Minister, questions which I hope he will deal with when he replies to this debate so that there need not be any apprehension on the part of the general public in so far as this aspect of the matter is concerned. The first concerns the exhibition of films which have been exhibited to the public in normal theatres or cinemas after approval by the board, with cuts or restrictions; in other words, a film that has gone on the circuits throughout the country, which has been cut and to which restrictions may have been applied as to age groups. The first question is whether that film or a copy of that film may be exhibited privately or in circumstances which are termed private, in a private home, without those cuts and without those restrictions. Secondly there is the question of the film which has been banned entirely, in other words where the board has found it necessary to say that this film shall not be exhibited to the public. Is it the Minister’s intention that this film should not be shown under any circumstances in private or in clubs and so on, as is provided in this Bill? I ask this, Sir, because the hon. member for Pretoria Central, who is a learned member of the legal profession, has taken up the attitude that this Bill before us means something different to what has been said by the hon. the Deputy Minister. The hon. member for Pretoria Central, if I may quote from his Hansard, said—

Well, Sir, that is the position. The general public would like to comply with the law as it is. But this is one of those matters where, although the hon. the Deputy Minister may have indicated his intention to us and I cannot ask him to interpret what the law is, he can at least indicate what Government policy is. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister must spell it out clearly to the public of South Africa. Sir, we on our side have made it quite clear that we believe that there should not be a privileged class of viewers and that if a film is of such a nature that it is justifiably cut or its showing is banned to the theatre going public of South Africa, then there should be no loopholes whereby the privileged classes, if I may put it that way, can have home movies and see these films which are not open to the general public. Sir, the hon. the Deputy Minister has not clearly indicated the policy of the Government and I trust that he will do so at this stage because we ourselves feel that this is a matter that needs attention; it is not receiving attention in the Bill, and the Bill as it is before us is not acceptable to us on this side of the House.

If one had listened to the Third Reading speech of the hon. member for Green Point, one would involuntarily have thought of the saying that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear and none so blind as those who will not see. That is precisely the case with the Opposition in regard to this Bill. I think it is necessary for us to take note of three main points in regard to the implementation of the Act in its amended form. I want to deal briefly, in the first place, with the history of this legislation—this has already been dealt with, but it is probably necessary to repeat it —in the second place, the contents of the amendment to the Act, and in the third place how these will influence the further operation of this Act. I have said that the hon. member has shown that there is none so blind as he who will not see. In his Second Reading speech during the debate which lasted from 10th to 12th March, 1971, and is recorded in Hansard, the hon. member for Parow dealt with the approach to this Bill, an approach which has been adopted by the Opposition since 1954. I want to remind the hon. member for Green Point that he said that the 1963 approach to the Act was, as he put it, “the correct approach”, the acceptable approach. It was acceptable to the Opposition. The hon. member for Parow then found it necessary to prove chapter and verse that this was not true, that what the hon. member had said was not correct, that what was at issue was not amendments in the Bill to effect a better operation of the Act, but that there was a difference in principle between the Government and the Opposition, and that it seemed that these approaches were irreconcilable; that in addition a tendency had in recent years developed, which was being proclaimed by the newspapers and strongly supported by the Opposition, that everything which the Publications Board does should be condemned without one having any facts at one’s disposal.

The hon. member for Parow pointed out during the Second Reading debate that this Act had had a long history and that in 1954 legislation had been envisaged and the so-called Cronje committee of enquiry had been appointed to prepare the best legislation. A few years later they came forward with a Bill, which was not acceptable, and in 1960 the Government itself came forward with legislation to control these matters as the Opposition says they would like to see them being controlled, but what has happened? Exactly what has happened here now. The Government in due course agreed to a Select Committee which had to examine the legislation, and the Select Committee returned to Parliament with an amended Bill which was acceptable to the members of the Select Committee which consisted of members from both sides of the House. And what was the result? In that debate the main speaker on the Opposition side rose to his feet and said things which have already been quoted by the hon. member for Parow, but which I want to repeat here this afternoon. The main speaker on the Opposition side then said, despite the fact that members of the United Party on the Select Committee were satisfied with it, that—

And he went further to state—

It is not this amendment they are opposed to. Who is the Oppositionn trying to bluff by saying that they only want good legislation and that they also believe in censure and proper control? There is not a vestige of truth in that. They protested at the time when the Bill was supported by their own people on the Select Committee and up to this moment they have kept on opposing a Bill which attempts to establish an orderly society.

The hon. member for Green Point made it absolutely clear when he spoke in the Second Reading debate that he supported the legislation and the approach as it existed in 1963. All these numerous things which were referred to, also in this speech to which reference is being made, of court cases which went against the Publications Board, and all the jubilation in newspapers and statements from Opposition speakers when they appear in public, reveal exactly what the approach is. It is simply loaded with hate for the work of this Publications Board, and this is a method of running down this work, a method which is absolutely unjustifiable and quite reprehensible to say the least. I want to concede that one cannot make legislation which is water-tight. It has been proved in regard to this legislation as well, through court decisions, that there has as yet been no water-tight legislation before the House. I am certain we shall also be the first to admit that these amendments do not make the legislation absolutely watertight, that mistakes will still creep in, and that the Publications Board will still make mistakes in their judgment, because judgment, after all, is a subjective matter. But I want to make this statement after having had the privilege—for which I am grateful to the hon. the Minister of the Interior, the former Minister of the Interior and the present Deputy Minister who has been dealing with this legislation—of going to see certain of these banned publications and films, that the work which is being done by the Publications Board is outstanding work if one views it in its entirety. Why is no fuss made when the Publications Board keeps a film out of the country which in the opinion of all of us should be kept away from the public and particularly from our young people? Sir, I cannot imagine a more naïve approach than the one the Opposition is now adopting in respect of the way in which this legislation should be applied, the method of selection, and the way in which a decision is to be reached as to whether or not a picture or reading matter is admissible. I hope that I am going to quote the hon. member’s precise words now. If I am wrong, I would be glad if the hon. member for Green Point would correct me. He said that the standpoint of the Opposition was as follows: “Decisions must be acceptable to the majority”. Sir, where can one find greater naivety? How does one ascertain whether the majority of the public are in favour of a film or not? Can the hon. member or anyone on that side explain to me how this can be done? How does one set about having a book selected? Do you distribute it to the entire population, with the request that they should read it? Should you give it to all age groups? Must you then hold a referendum in which the public vote for or against the book or for or against a paragraph? The Opposition do not have the slightest intention of allowing any selection. This is a bluff and nothing else. Can one imagine anything more ridiculous from a responsible Opposition than to say that their basis of approval or disapproval will be that “it must be acceptable to the majority”? Sir, I would prefer to say nothing more about it. I can only add that if one of the members on the opposite side could suggest a positive method, which we could write into this Bill, in terms of which the opinion of the majority could be ascertained, I am convinced that the hon. the Deputy Minister and the Government would consider it, provided it was enforceable and provided it is not suspended in mid-air as their proposals are now suspended in mid-air.

Sir, a great deal is being said in the Press about the Publications Board. After having seen a few films which are being exhibited, I also differed in some respects with the opinions of the Publications Board. I want to admit that a group of us on the Government side attended the exhibition of certain films, and a difference of opinion arose among various members in regard to precisely what age group should be admitted to a specific film, yes or no. We could not reach agreement. I can well imagine that in the Publications Board there is not always a 100 per cent unanimity, and that there are majority decisions, but that still has nothing to do with the integrity and the honest intentions of the members of the Publications Board. This still does not turn them, as is being said by way of implication, into “a lot of prudes”. Let me say at once that if I were faced with the choice of being called a “prude” or a “libertine”, I would far rather be called a “prude”. I think the Publications Board can be grateful that they at least bear that kind of label, and not that of the other extreme. They have assisted in ensuring that this country does not yet bear the label of a Denmark, or of other countries where everything can be distributed uncensored and where no attention is being given to these matters. That is what has been borne in mind since 1954 and even before that. Even now it is being borne in mind that this board, which has a difficult task to perform, shall enjoy proper and fair protection from the legislature, from the courts, to which they must sometimes have recourse, and from those people in whose best interests they have to do their work. I think that they, too, have reasons to expect more from the Opposition, that they deserve something more than that the Opposition should merely criticize and also by way of insinuation and sometimes by way of direct accusations make them out to be a lot of prudes who know nothing about the modern world in which we are living.

A few amendments have been made to the Act, but these were dealt with thoroughly in the Committee Stage. I do not intend going into all the details again. In regard to one of the matters I do nevertheless want to say a few words again, because it was broached this afternoon by the hon. member for Green Point. This is the question of the appointment of inspectors to help the Publications Board in the execution of its duties. The hon. member made a great fuss about the Police being properly equipped to do this kind of work. May I, in all earnestness, ask whether the hon. member really thinks that a policeman who has had his training in a different direction entirely is a person better qualified to form an opinion in regard to the exhibition of a film than a person who has special training, special talents, and has had special experience in that direction? How naïve it is to send any person from the Police Force to investigate when there has been a complaint, as was suggested here? All that is being proposed here is the appointment of auxiliary officials who in the execution of their duties can be of assistance in the proper implementation of the Act as it stands on the Statute Book. Here, use is being made of an auxiliary means. In addition to that let me state directly that, as I read the Act, it is not the intention that these inspectors should have the final say in regard to the acceptance or rejection of a work. In addition, these people act only in a recommendatory capacity for the Publications Board and are able to bring the complaints made by the public to the attention of the Publications Board. This Act has been on the Statute Book since 1963. From 1963 onwards, and before that, the Opposition have argued against the contents and the spirit of that Act. Let me again emphasize that they are not arguing against the literal, actual provisions of the Act, but against the spirit of the Act and against the spirit in which the Act is being implemented. They have always argued against that. Eight years after the commencement of the Act, we are now coming forward with amendments to improve it, as we see the matter. Nor will this be the final word spoken in regard to this matter. No law is in any form final and perfect. But let me ask every South African to examine his conscience and say to whether he prefers the Act with all its deficiencies and the Publications Board with all the mistakes it has made, or whether he prefers a free life in which everyone can do what he pleases and “the majority decision is arrived at only after the contamination has taken place, when the majority people will say that it was good or it was bad”? Do they prefer in South Africa a Publications Board which is able to do the work of censuring and selecting and which has been doing it for the past eight years, so that today still we have been spared the rubbish which is openly being exhibited overseas, some of which is sometimes exhibited in private here as well? Do they prefer the Publications Board with its members who are sometimes accused of being “prudes”, prudish old people, and a decent society where the culture of our young people is protected, or do they prefer the alternative I have mentioned? The hon. member for Green Point said that things were changing overseas. Why is that? Why are they now backing away from that extremistic baseness and—I may as well say it—in some cases even smut? I say, thank God for South Africa where that absolute smut has at least been checked by the Publications Board. The publications I have seen, were to have and would have entered this country had it not been for this legislation and the Publications Board. What I saw with my own eyes is too disgusting to discuss. That is why I say we should be grateful for the Act and for the people who are carrying out their duties under these difficult circumstances, so that we can at least feel clean when we walk out after a bioscope show or walk out of a bookshop.

Mr. Speaker, I must honestly say that I do not feel like replying once again to the accusation of the hon. member for Witbank that we are opposed in principle to control.

Of course you are.

We have dealt with this matter over and over again. That hon. member can believe what he wants to.

We can only believe what we have heard here and read.

If the hon. member wants to be ridiculous, then he must go ahead and be ridiculous. Any-one living in South Africa knows that for as long as he can remember, and long before this Government came into power, we had censorship in South Africa. Long before the National Party came into power, there was a Censorship Act. To say now that this side of the House is opposed in principle to censorship, is so much nonsense that I do not feel like replying to it. I make a present of it now to the hon. member for Witbank and the hon. member for Wolmaransstad that if they find people in South Africa who believe this, they are the kind of people in whom we are not interested in any case. That hon. member must please tell me why it is that attacks were not only made by the Opposition Press, but that the sharpest attacks, not against the principle, but against the actions of the board, came from newspapers that support the Government.

But not against the Act.

But of course nobody is attacking the principle. We have made our standpoint very clear in respect of what not only we are opposed to, but also every writer of stature in South Africa. I am not going to go over it again.

Mr. Speaker, may I just ask the hon. member a question? I want to ask the hon. member whether he wants to imply by that that the opinions of newspapers should be the yardstick of selection?

No, nobody said that. But a newspaper is in fact an interpreter of public opinion as well.

Since when?

Oh my goodness, surely we at least have the right to accept that certain newspapers are the official mouthpieces of the Government. Some are officially designated at congresses as being the mouthpiece of a political party. Then we do at least have the right to say that it is a responsible mouthpiece of opinion on the Government side.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? I just want to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with the hon. member for Turffontein that the standpoint of the church, as far as this matter is concerned, is a verkrampte one?

Mr. Speaker, I should very much like to know precisely what standpoint is being referred to.

The standpoint as expressed by the church.

I said yesterday during the Committee Stage that I fully endorsed this standpoint, if this is the one specified. I think the hon. member for Turffontein was speaking in general. But the statement which was inter alia issued by professors of the Theological Seminary at Stellenbosch, I endorse in full. But this has nothing to do with this amendment Bill. It deals with the whole question of censorship, and keeping out smut. On that we are fully agreed. I shall endorse that standpoint to the hilt. In any case, my standpoint has always been that one can expect a church to be a little conservative. The church is there as a restraining influence. It also has that task to fulfil. It would be a pity if the restraining influences had to disappear. Nobody advocates that. I am not here to attack anyone who is advocating restraining influences. I am only out to see that we get a system of censorship or control which is fair. I do not think that we, as the legislation exists at the moment, have a fair system.

Let me return to the Bill before us. A foreigner who has been observing our politics carefully for the past two years now, recently told me that he had arrived at the conclusion that there was a certain “self-destructive wish” among our people. Every political solution that we conceived or presented, was more damaging and destructive than the problem with which we were dealing. Whether this is right or to what extent this opinion is correct, we could perhaps debate at a later stage. One thing is clear to me: If one considers the history of this Bill lying before us, from its inception until this stage where we now have the baby in the crib before us, I must say that even now I do not know what burning problem of censorship the Government actually wants to solve with this Bill. We have already in the course of our speeches pointed out that we have one of the most rigid and most hide-bound censorship laws in the world and that we are much closer to the Russian model than to that of every Western country. There is almost no Afrikaans or English South African poet or writer of any stature who has not at one stage or another already rebelled against the legislation as it stands. Now I will readily concede that there are certain matters in regard to which any reasonable person ought to adopt a stern attitude. I know of no one who obstructs or criticizes the Publications Board in its work when it acts against ordinary smut, to say nothing of communistic propoganda.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? Would the hon. member be so good as to produce proof of his statement that our model is close to the Russian model? The hon. member can give us proof of his statement.

I shall do so when we come to the discussion of the hon. the Minister’s Vote, as he requested. Then we will discuss the actions of the Publications Board.

We are talking about the present, while this legislation is under discussion.

No, but I do not have the proof with me now. Either he wants it or he does not want it. Does he want it? If he wants it, I will give it to him, and then I will give it to him in my own time. I want to reaffirm here that our model is much closer to the Russian model than it is to that of the Western countries. The hon. member can either accept it or reject it. If he knows anything about what happened to writers such as the author of Dr. Zhivago, he will already know that we are much closer to that model than to that of the Western countries.

You do not know what you are talking about here.

If that is not the case, then the hon. member need not believe it. One need only look at the decisions given by our judges and at the reaction which has from time to time appeared even in the Government Press against decisions of the board. Times without number, the Minister himself has had to reverse decisions of the board. The other day he had to admit himself, in a reply which he gave to questions, that the board interpreted the legislation “too strictly”. What I am saying here, is that we are dealing in the first instance with one of the most hide-bound laws of its kind as far as censorship is concerned. In addition we still have a board, and this is its choice and its right, which applies the strict legislation exceptionally strictly, with the result that there are more than reasonable grounds for public dissatisfaction. Now with this public dissatisfaction, in this climate and in these circumstances where there is justified public dissatisfaction, what is the Government doing? In these circumstances it is making the Principle Act even more hide-bound and even more strait-laced and it is giving the board even greater powers than it has had up to now. In the first place the board is now solemnly being appointed the moral policeman of the country. It is now obtaining its own small police force, and it will grow. We know from all other bureaucratic institutions that it will grow and that it will not remain where it started. It will become larger and larger and the taxpayer will have to bear the increasing costs. In the past a person who laid a complaint with the Publications Board also had to produce the proof. Now, however, people can demand that the board send its policeman to go and snoop around themselves. All the complainant need od now is simply to submit a written complaint and to lay it on thick enough so that the board will take notice of it. To encourage complaints, the hon. Deputy Minister has, believe it or not, gone and invited people to lay complaints before the Board. Actually we on this side of the House should not complain about it, because I am quite convinced that the hon. the Deputy Minister has in so doing cut a switch for his, the board’s and his Government’s back. This also reveals the spirit in which this legislation is going to be viewed. It is being viewed as an encouragement to people, and these are usually people who know the least about these matters, to complain to the board and in that way embitter the lives of writers, poets and artists as they embittered the life of a man like N. P. van Wyk Louw in his last days.

Secondly the board is now being given the power to make cuts in plays, entertainments and satires. The board can now like a vulture go and remove all the meaty bits from a revue until only the bare bones remain. As the Act reads at the moment, it states clearly, and we know that the board confines itself strictly to this strict Act, that if it should merely seem that something in a play can have the effect of giving offence to a group of people or that attitudes or human character traits are being ridiculed, the Publications Board must act. And I want to tell the hon. the Deputy Minister that it will not end with the Lord’s Prayer in “Eight Beasts”. One only has to watch how Dirk Opperman comes under fire every Christmas because of his Kersliedjie every time it is published. One will then realize what a yoke these powers of the Publications Board will place on our stage and our literature. This will be the case particularly with small theatres such as that of Adam Leslie in Johannesburg. [Interjection.! I want to tell the hon. member for Potchefstroom, who is now making so many interjections, that the unfortunate part of it is that most people who complain rely on newspaper reports and that most of them know as much about literature as the man on the moon. They simply do not know how to interpret poems of that nature, with the result that they cause an uproar. We saw this clearly in another case I can mention, i.e. that of The Canterbury Tales. There one could see in what ignorance some people live. In the case of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which were written 600 years ago, people complained that this was proof of modern permissiveness. They then ran to the newspapers and the Publications Board with their complaints. That is the difficulty we are faced with.

In other words, if nonsense is 500 years old …

The difficulty is that as the Act reads at the moment —our complaint is not that there is an Act —the Publications Board must take notice of complaints of this kind and people of this kind who never go near a decent show in South Africa. That is why I say that this provision is not an improvement of the Act. It is much better to judge a play or a revue in its entirety and that the kind of people who go to see it be taken into consideration, than that the board should peck bits and pieces out of sophisticated revues simply in order to satisfy groups of people who in any case never go near those shows.

This Bill is going to have a third result as well. The principal Act is now in these times and in this way being made applicable to South-West Africa. The hon. the Deputy Minister explained that control over publications and films was one of the matters which, by way of an earlier Act, was already intended to be made applicable to South-West Africa. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that although this is correct, there is no obligation on the Government. That legislation imposed no obligation on the Government to make this Act applicable, just as it is, to South-West Africa. It was simply “control of publications”, not the Act as it stands. Publications and cinematograph films must be controlled from here, but there is no obligation on the Government to make the principal Act applicable there just as it stands. In any case, the hon. the Minister and the Government ought to know that South-West Africa is the one territory on which, at this juncture, as little attention as possible should be focussed. Yet the hon. the Deputy Minister makes one of the most contentious laws which is being controlled by one of the most contentious institutions, the Publications Board, applicable to South-West Africa at this juncture.

Arising out of that there is another consequence. This is the official creation of a double standard, a dual criterion in our country. People can now go and see a film in Windhoek, which they are prohibited from seeing here. As an old South-West African, I do not begrudge South-West Africa the enhanced status it has received; but I want to say that the effect of that will be that attention is going to be focussed in a very unfavourable way on the kind of policy which is being applied here. It will merely intensify the unfavourable image of the Republic which already exists throughout the world. The effect of one of the amendments which is now being effected in this Bill is in fact that seems to be involving a fight between Whites and non-Whites, as long as they are not fighting too viciously, is admissible in the Republic as well. However, scenes where people of different races are on too friendly a footing with one another are now, in terms of the same Act, admissible in South-West, but not in the Republic.

In conclusion I want to mention a further consequence. The Bill has left us with a lot of vagueness in regard to the question of the “influencing” of the board and the Minister, and unmentioned misdemeanours which a person in control of a film is not supposed to commit. I can inform the hon. the Minister that the Board is in the process creating an embarrassment for itself in that it will have to go and testify if there is a court case or if it is influenced and how it has been influenced by anything a film-maker has done.

The board need not go and testify.

Well, then it is very ineffectual. I cannot see why a man who is being charged, will not have the right to call upon the board and to say “Testify here—did I influence you, and how?”. I have never yet seen an institution cutting for its own back such a wicked switch. Here it is creating embarrassment for itself.

But it is not stated here.

But it is a clear consequence of this. I do not in any way accept the arguments which some of the members there put forward. If a man is charged with an offence in regard to a book which has been banned, surely he has the right to call upon the board and to dispute this and to ask for the reasons why the book was banned to be given. In the same way a man will have the right to call upon the board if he has been charged that he influenced them. Then, surely, he will have the right to call upon the board and to ask “Did I influence you?”.

What has that to do with the price of eggs?

Very well, we will wait and see. I am convinced that it is creating an embarrassment for itself here which it will regret. All I can see is that the entire attempt has not only placed the Minister and the board in an unfavourable light, but that it is also going to place a totally unnecessary yoke on our young motion picture industry. I think that is greatly to be regretted. That is why I say that there is virtually nothing in this Bill which encourages a person to vote for it.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is a person who is very fond of discussing important matters and minor matters, great sins and little sins, and great transgressions and little ones. I find it strange that he did not today try, as he did in the case of petty apartheid, to define major control and minor control.

The Opposition has time and again tried to indicate that it is in favour of control. This afternoon as well the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and the hon. member for Green Point tried to prove to us that they are in fact in favour of control. However, if one listened very attentively to their arguments, one could only arrive at the conclusion that this standpoint of theirs is mere lip-service, that they are not only opposed to the method of control, but also to the principle of control over publications and films. As a result of their having opposed this measure tooth and nail, one must inevitably arrive at this conclusion. I want to call the United Party, and also the hon. member for Houghton, the permissive party, the laissez-faire party for by adopting the standpoint they did in fact adopt, they are playing right into the hands of the spirit of permissiveness prevailing throughout the entire world today. They want public opinion—which has already proved in actual fact to be the rowdy minority—to determine what motion pictures should be exhibited in South Africa and what publications should be allowed. In other words, they want that rowdy minority—which they call public opinion —to decide on what is good or bad, and what is right or wrong. Because they know that this Government has a duty towards the people of South Africa and because this Government, as a responsible Government, is determined to ensure the security of the State, that good order prevails here, the general welfare, decency, religious convictions and good relations between the various peoples, and because they know that this Government implements the will of the bulk of the population, that is why they come along here, as they again did this afternoon, and speak disparagingly of the Act and the Publications Board. Various speakers on that side of the House, as well as the Press which supports them, have done their level best to cast suspicion on the Publications Board, a board whose members enjoy the confidence of the bulk of the population. The board consists of persons who are able and competent to do the work they are doing, persons whose integrity and judgment cannot be doubted. We see this board as a board of experts, people who in every sphere apply their knowledge to the service of the community in order to ensure that whatever is undesirable, whatever is harmful and may do damage to the minds of our community, is eliminated. As far as public opinion is concerned, about which the Opposition kicked up such a row and such a fuss, I just want to say that if the United Party is really so concerned about public opinion it is time that that party reflects on its position, that it examines itself. Is it not public opinion which is responsible for that party having been rejected at various elections during the past 23 years? Is it not public opinion which has for 23 years shown such a great measure of confidence in the National Party that it has at every election entrusted its future to this Government? The United Party, that has in its attitude towards this legislation once again shown its true colours, has as far as I know a record which is unique of its kind in the democratic history of the world—to have sat for 23 years in the Opposition benches. That is truly a world record, a record made inheritable for that party by public opinion in South Africa.

They claim that the youth of South Africa is on their side and that the youth support them in their approach to this legislation. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District is nodding his head and is confirming that this is the case. But I want to refer the United Party, which is hawking the allegation around that the youth of South Africa is on its side, to an investigation by Prof. Jannie Pieterse, the results of which were contained in his work “Die Jeug en Arbeid”. His investigation revealed that 68.2 per cent of the youth support the National Party, while 18.4 per cent, at the time of the investigation, supported no party. Only 8.1 per cent of the youth support the United Party, as against 2.8 per cent who support the Progressive Party. On page 87 of his work we find the following (translation)—

Order! The hon. member must not deviate too far from the Third Reading of this legislation.

I just wanted, in passing, to bring these particulars to the attention of members of the United Party, they who avail themselves every day of the opportunity of telling us that the youth is on their side.

Order! But that has nothing to do with this Bill.

Then I am sorry that I cannot bring home the whole truth to the minds of the United Party. In any case, as one of the younger members in this House I want, on behalf of our conservative youth, to convey my gratitude and appreciation to the Minister and to the Government today for the steps which are being taken here. These are steps to remove from our midst those things which are damaging to the life of our people and to eliminate the instruments which are being used by our enemies to undermine the security of the State and to mar relations among the various ethnic groups, Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on behalf of the youth who do not want to create the impression among outsiders as was created the other day by the hon. member for Turffontein when he said that his church was verkramp.

Scandalous!

Sir, the youth also appreciate the good work which is being done by the Publications Board in the interests of our people and our fine country. We accept that the Publications Board can also make mistakes; that is only human. We realize that in its judgment the Publications Board will not always be able to give satisfaction to the variety of views in our population structure, but we know that the objectives of this legislation and the actions of the board are aimed at eliminating the elements which are damaging to us as a Christian nation and can do harm to us as a Christian people. I think the time has arrived for the youth of South Africa, who want to see South Africa survive as a clean, decent and Christian fatherland, to rebel against the critical, permissive and derogatory spirit which is abroad in South Africa, a spirit which is also being encouraged by the United Party. That is why I was grateful to see that the Student Council of the University of Stellenbosch expressed disapproval of the distribution of the indecent and blasphemous rag magazine, Sax Appeal. That is why I was even more grateful to see that a group of Ikeys, in protest against the vulgarities in this rag magazine, tore up copies of this publication on the campus. When the Publications Board placed a prohibition on this rag magazine of the University of Cape Town, the hon. member for Green Point, on behalf of his party, supposedly gave the prohibition of this publication their blessing, but what was the actual position? The prohibited rag magazine was selling like hot cakes in the streets of Cape Town the day after the prohibition was announced. The United Party controlled City Council of Cape Town, as far as I know, did not lift a finger to put a stop to this distribution within its area. But that is the United Party all over, it says one thing and does another. That is why we are grateful for the provision which is also being made in this Bill in section 13A (1) (c) to the effect that a publication like Sax Appeal can be seized before it can, with the best publicity from the Press, be distributed further, as we saw happen in the example we just had.

I said at the start that the United Party claims to be an advocate of control, and I want once again to allege that in principle they are opposed to control. Various hon. members on the opposite side of the House pointed out that the freedom of the individual is being restricted by this Bill. Their standpoint is that every citizen must be given a chance to choose himself between what is good or bad, and between what is right or wrong [Interjections.] The hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central is saying that this is rubbish, but I want to quote what the hon. member for Green Point said in the Second Reading-debate. He said—

I should like to give more examples. I should like to quote the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central more examples from Hansard of 29th January, 1963, column 411. Then the former member for Turffontein, Mr. Badenhorst Durrant, adopted the same standpoint as the hon. member for Green Point. He was then still a member of that party, and he said—

Then he went further—

And then he went even further and said—

Surely it is as clear as daylight that that Party wants no control. They want every individual to have to decide for himself what is good and what is bad. In other words, it is the same as the United Party standpoint in regard to immigration was, i.e. “let them come, the good and the bad”. And when the good and the bad are here, every individual must decide for himself whether he wants to see it in the case of a film, or read it in the case of a publication.

There are people in our society who look for cruelty, sex and such things in films and publications. I see in one of last Sunday’s newspapers that sex tours to Europe are now going to be arranged.

Are you going along?

Sir, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District may reserve a booking on that tour, but thank God the situation in South Africa is such today that similar tours are not being arranged to this country. We thank God that indecency has not to such an extent overwhelmed our people. That is why we need this legislation. It is necessary to curb those elements which are harmful to our national way of life. The Publications Board deserves the confidence of the entire nation so that they can ward off, in an unrestricted way, the bombardment of vulgar, indecent and unpatriotic elements from overseas unfettered. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout expressed a fear that this legislation would damage our own motion picture industry, but I think, however, that this legislation will entail that our own filmmakers, our own writers, sculptures and painters, will not have to turn to what is harmful to the life of the people in an attempt to compete with the ugliness from abroad. On the contrary, they will harness their powers and their talents to build in South Africa a people that can with justification term themselves a Christian people.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kuruman says that we on this side of the House are against any form of control. I do not know why he is persisting with that allegation. All I can do is to say to him what St. Augustine said 1 500 years ago: “The very limit of human blindness is to glory in being blind.” Apart from that, he went on to debate what happened to the Nationalist Party in various elections. I notice that he did not tell us much about the two elections of last year. He did not take the debate very much further.

I want to return to the hon. member for Witbank, who said that he would deal with this legislation from three points of view. The one point of view on which he concentrated was the history of this amending Bill and of the original legislation it seeks to amend. In outlining the history of this Bill he went right back to the early 1950s. I do not propose to follow him that far back, because you will recall, Sir, that already during the Second Reading-debate on this Bill I made certain observations in regard to what I believed were its true origins. But I feel that I must go back and touch upon those observations once more in reply to that hon. member. I suggested that the legislation with which we are now dealing, was not the brain-child of this Deputy Minister nor of the Minister of the Interior. Nor, indeed, is it the brain-child of anybody in high office on that side of the House. I pointed out during the Second Reading—and I believe it to be more true than ever now—that it was conceived by the former member for Innesdal, Mr. Jaap Marais, who is. of course, now Deputy Leader of the Herstigte Nasionale Party. I believe that it was he who first introduced pressure for more vigorous forms of censorship, and especially film censorship, into this House in June, 1959. In this he was supported by two others, who at that time were members of the Nationalist Party Caucus, Mr. Willie Marais and Mr. Louis Stofberg.

He was not here in 1959. You are talking nonsense.

I am sorry, I meant 1969. Besides these two there were also other hon. members of the Nationalist Party Caucus, members who are still in this House today. In their efforts to provoke action towards stricter forms of censorship and particularly, as I say, with regard to film censorship, those people suggested that the whole system of censoring films should be reviewed. I want to say that anybody who has listened closely to the whole trend of the Second Reading-Debate, debates during the Committee Stage and this Third Reading-Debate, can come to one conclusion only, namely that more and more evidence has been amassed that this Bill is going to impose the verkramptheid of Mr. Jaap Marais and his colleagues on South Africa and South-West Africa. Indeed, they must be deriving considerable satisfaction from the knowledge that their influence…

Order! What has that to do with the Bill?

If I may say it, Sir, the hon. member for Witbank dealt with the background of this Bill and I am just touching on this briefly to show that this Bill is bringing a whole new era of verkramptheid to the censorship scene. As I say. these gentlemen, who are no longer with us, must be deriving considerable comfort from the knowledge that their influence can still be felt so strongly in the inner chambers of government.

But what has that to do with the Bill?

I am dealing with the effect of this Bill on the country.

No. the hon. member is going too far. He must come back to the Bill.

I will abide by your ruling, Sir, and say that one need go no further than the reply of the hon. the Deputy Minister to the Second Reading-debate, when he alleged that we on this side of the House were longing for permissive Europe and suggested that the whole purpose of the Bill was to put an end to that possibility. The hon. member for Kuruman went a little further. He said a few moments ago that we on this side of the House were playing into the hands of the permissive spirit that is ruling the world. All of this betrays an approach to this legislation that harbours ill for the future of this country as far as legislation is concerned and, particularly, as far as the application of this legislation is concerned. I would suggest that the sort of remarks we have heard even this afternoon could surely have come straight from the mouth of Mr. Jaap Marais or from the pages of the South African Observer. All of this builds up in the mind’s eye a picture of this Government wanting to create a paper and celluloid curtain between us in South Africa and the rest of the cultural world for fear that we might become polluted and our morals fall into decay.

I want to come back to remarks made a few moments ago by the hon. member for Kuruman. During the Second Reading-debate, the Committee Stage and again in this debate speakers on the Government side have suggested time and time again that we oppose all forms of censorship or, indeed as the hon. the Deputy Minister said, we long for permissive Europe. In spite of repeated emphasis on this side of the House that this is not so, hon. members—and the last one was the last speaker—have persisted in this allegation. It was Shakespeare who wrote of censorship as being “art made tongue-tied by authority.” In referring to art, Shakespeare was not referring to pornography or any other form of communication that could be aimed at corrupting the morals of the people.

We have made it quite clear that we are completely against the dissemination of every form of pornography, but we also believe that control over this sort of thing should be exercised through reasonable laws, applied by reasonable people, people who are closely in touch with modern thinking and sensitive to the impact of public opinion. We feel that this legislation will have one effect, which is to ensure that none of this happens in future.

We believe that in tightening up the censorship laws of this country—and again I stress, particularly as they apply to films—-and by making these laws applicable to South-West Africa, this Government is not being reasonable. We believe, too, that this Bill does not even reflect enlightened opinion in the Nationalist Party.

The provisions of this Bill which this Government now asks to be passed at its Third Reading seek to protect the Publications Control Board, as well as the Minister, from being influenced. In doing so, it betrays a highhandedness on the part of this Government that we have already observed in the actions of the Publications Control Board itself, actions which, I might say, have already been commented upon adversely by several Supreme Court Judges.

But during the passage of this Bill so far, hon. members on the other side have shown something worse, i.e. an intolerance of criticism from many public sources, where it has been aimed at the Publications Control Board. Is this type of criticism not the very essence of what we really need in applying something that has to do with present-day moral attitudes of society? Why should the board be considered sacrosanct just because it has been given the task of adjudicating upon the suitability of films and literature to be seen or read by our public? It was Churchill who told us: “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things.” Why then should hon. members on the other side of the House still argue that this board should be freed of criticism? [Interjections.] Why at this stage should they be so anxious to protect the board? One only has to read what the hon. the Deputy Minister said during the Second Reading-debate on this Bill about protecting the board. Indeed, the hon. member for Pretoria Central went even further. He tried to shroud the board in some sort of protection similar to that of the courts.

Why should the hon. the Deputy Minister, indeed, want to encode his attitude in the long title of the Bill by moving an amendment in the Committee Stage, as he has done, to provide for the unfettered performance of their functions by the board and the Minister? Before a vote is finally taken at this Third Reading, I trust that we shall still hear from the one person from whom we should have heard long ago. Here I refer to the hon. the Minister of the Interior. During the Second Reading-debate he gave us an undertaking that he would enter this debate and that he would speak on this Bill.

He never said that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says that is not true. If that hon. Deputy Minister were to look at Hansard, as I have done, he would see that the hon. the Minister of the Interior gave this undertaking in very explicit terms. Before he speaks later in this debate he might well send for that Hansard so that he can read it. The Minister gave this undertaking when the hon. member for Orange Grove was speaking. If the hon. the Deputy Minister will have a look at that, he will see exactly what the hon. the Minister of the Interior said. As hon. members know, the hon. the Minister of the Interior has not yet given effect to this undertaking. He never gave effect to it at the Second Reading stage; he did not enter the Committee Stage; and until now he has not entered this Third Reading-debate. The hon. the Minister of the Interior is still the Minister who is responsible for this Bill. The fact that it is being piloted through this House by the hon. the Deputy Minister does not absolve him from such responsibility. He should be able to tell us quite a lot about the background of this Bill, as indeed we expect it of him, and he should deal with those things which the hon. the Deputy Minister has not told us so far. When the question of the initiation of this Bill came up, this hon. Deputy Minister said that he was not proposing to tell us who was responsible for this Bill. I do not intend to go into the whole detail of what was said by various speakers on this side of the House about who was the father of this Bill, but I simply want to refer hon. members to what the hon. the Deputy Minister said in column 2570 of Hansard. He said—

At that stage I made an interjection and said: “Or Jaap”. The hon. the Deputy Minister continued: “It was initiated by the Government as such and we accept responsibility for this Bill and also for the amendments. Now I think they have their answer”.

I suggest that the hon. the Deputy Minister at the Second Reading begged the real question and that he did so because the true answer would have amounted to an embarrassment for him and his side of the House. I would like to ask him once again to deal with this when he replies at the end of the debate. We would still like to know, and so far he has not enlightened us on this, who was originally responsible for the illconceived original subsection (4A) and what lay behind it. Simply telling us that it was the Government does not tell us anything at all.

I said earlier that this Bill, in our view, is going to lead to a new era of darkness and of verkramptheid in the application of our censorship laws. I want to refer to something which has been said in this House. I am afraid I shall have to go back very briefly to what happened in 1959, when the film Katrina was very much under discussion.

1969.

I am sorry, it was in 1969. At the time the film Katrina was the subject of intense dispute, the question being of course whether it should be banned or released. In mentioning this I want hon. members to consider the position now that the new section 4(A) has been introduced and is going to be applied by this Government. Mr. Jaap Marais and his colleagues wanted the film Katrina banned. During his reply to the Second Reading debate the hon. the Deputy Minister made the point that a large number of people saw the film before the final decision was made by the censors and he intimated that public opinion generated by this had had quite a lot to do with the decision to release that film for viewing. We know that in their approach to this sort of thing at the time, Mr. Jaap Marais and those who surrounded him were very anxious that the whole question of censorship should be tightened and made more rigid. The public opinion generated at the time about Katrina by those who were invited to see it, overrode the narrow views of Mr. Jaap Marais. It was little wonder then that they initiated a move for a stricter form of film censorship and stricter control over the way things were to be done. The fruits of their work are what we see in the new section (4A) as it stands in the Bill now. This augurs ill for our future if public opinion is going to be sealed off as far as the adjudication of films is concerned. Our censors are going to be denied probably the most valuable weapon that they can possibly use.

We oppose this Bill because what it seeks to do by way of amendment to the Publications and Entertainments Act is in our view a step backwards, away from enlightenment and the influence of public opinion. We oppose the application of the Act as a whole to South-West Africa … [Interjections.]

Order! One speaker at a time!

We oppose the application of the Act as a whole to South-West Africa because we believe that this will put this hitherto culturally enlightened territory on the road to cultural retrogression.

Mr. Speaker, I really listened attentively to the hon. member for Kensington. It was not a pleasant experience, but I nevertheless endured it. In this Third Reading-debate I should like to discuss a few specific matters. However, before doing so, I want to give the hon. member for Kensington and the hon. Opposition the assurance that there is no need for anybody other than the National Party and the Government to accept responsibility for this measure. We do not need anybody to accept responsibility for our actions. Let us see what it is all about. When the hon. the Deputy Minister made his Second Reading speech on this Bill, he said, inter alia, the following—

Now, from every Opposition speaker who has taken part in this debate up to now, we have heard the refrain that they are neither opposed to control nor to censorship. But time and again they have said that what they are actually opposed to, is either the method used by the hon. the Deputy Minister or the method used by the Publications Control Board—therefore, the method embodied in the relevant amendments which are before this House today. I have now read out to you, Sir, what the Deputy Minister said was involved here. Now the Opposition, man for man, want to suggest that their concern is merely with the method. Unfortunately the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is not present. Earlier this afternoon he also said that the only point at issue here was the method. The hon. member for Rissik asked him a question. I want to ask the hon. member for Bezuidenhout in his absence whether he is aware that the method prescribed in this Act, the provisions of this measure, was submitted to the Executive Church Council of the D.R. Church and that these particular provisions —in other words, the methods which the Deputy Minister wants to use—were approved by them and that they were relevant when the hon. member for Rissik asked the hon. member for Turffontein this question: “Are you saying that your church is verkramp?” The hon. member for Turffontein replied, “I am not ashamed of saying it; I shall repeat it.” In other words, the method which we are advocating in this Bill, and to which the Opposition is opposed, is being supported by a major church in this country. I do not hesitate to say that the method written into this Bill, is being supported by all churches in South Africa. Let us ask today whether any member of the Opposition would rise and say that if the church he belongs to were to support the method prescribed in this Bill, he would be against his church, as was said by the hon. member for Turffontein. We have a very difficult task to carry out. To preserve the morals of a nation is probably the primary task of the church. But the State also has a function in this regard. It is for that reason that the State established the Publications Control Board in South Africa. Now, we cannot hide behind a smokescreen by simply saying that we are in favour of control and censorship, but that we have always been opposed to the methods used to apply that control and censorship. Let me read out to hon. members what the hon. member for Orange Grove said in regard to the method in the same debate. I am quoting from Hansard (column 2469). I have already told hon. members what the attitude was of the hon. member for Turffontein, i.e. that he took a stand against his own church as far as this specific matter was concerned. But listen to what was said by the hon. member for Orange Grove. The hon. member for Kensington referred here with acclamation to the fine manner in which the hon. member for Orange Grove acted. Let us just listen to what he said—

Continuing, he said—

Sir, let us try to grasp this: that a Bill prescribing certain measures in order that the morals of our country may be preserved, is allegedly backward and primitive! May I just tell hon. members who referred to St. Augustine and the prominent intellectuals of the past, that the downfall of the civilizations of those people were in fact caused when they no longer upheld their morals. Let hon. members just take a look at the history of the world and see what conclusion they arrive at. But the hon. member for Orange Grove went on to say—

This is what he said, Sir, not I—

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I am reading the hon. member’s Hansard—

Sir, I think the people of South Africa may be grateful for the fact that at that stage the time allotted to the hon. member for Orange Grove to make a speech, had expired. Hon. members of the Opposition have been making the fantastic statement that they are not opposed to censorhip; that they are not opposed to control. We are dealing here with amending legislation. If that is the case, what are the hon. gentlemen opposed to? To the method of course, they say. We are dealing here with a statutory body, and we are now introducing a new section 13A, in which provision is made for what the hon. member for Bezuidenhout described as “cultural police”. I think that this new term which he coined is still going to boomerang on him in this country. Let me remind the hon. member that we have here a statutory board, the powers of which are being extended at this stage by section 13A. In South Africa there is nothing strange about our having statutory boards with their own inspectors to carry out certain tasks for them. Sir, I can refer you to the inspectors of the Mealie Board for example; I can refer you to the inspectors of the Meat Board and I can refer to other inspectors whom we have—the Land Bank inspectors and the inspectors of the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure. Those people investigate specific things. But in regard to section 13 hon. members of the Opposition now want to suggest that we are dealing here with a person who may simply walk down the street any old day, enter every house and see whether a slightly offensive statuette is displayed or whether a pornographic book is to be found there, etc. Sir, what does section 13A provide? I should like to dwell on this matters since the Opposition’s motive is to present the method we want to employ here in a suspicious light to the public outside in order that the Publications Control Board, which watches over the morals of the nation, may be disparaged. That is the reason why I want to dwell on this matter. This section provides—

(a) may enter upon any place in or upon which it is upon reasonable grounds suspected …

I want to dwell on this point for a moment. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout and other hon. members opposite said that the Publications Control Board had already made so many mistakes that the Minister had had to intervene, that so many appeals had already been won against decisions of the board. Sir, let me set those hon. gentlemen right. In this country we make many laws which provide that where reasonable grounds exist, this and that may be done. Surely, if reasonable grounds do not exist, the opposite is true; then this or that may not be done. It is by no means strange that the decisions of a board such as the Publications Control Board are overridden by a court of appeal. We have the position in the legal world that the decision given by a magistrate may be overridden by a higher court of a province, and even the decision of a higher court of a province may be set aside by the Appeal Court. I could, until the cows come home, keep the hon. member for Green Point busy with quotations taken from court judgments in order to point out to him how different Judges have said different things about the same section. This is, therefore, no argument to advance here in this House; it is no argument to say that out of such and such a number of cases the Publications Control Board lost such and such a number. Sir, if I as an attorney or my colleagues as advocates were to say, “My ability should be determined on the basis of the number of court cases I have won or lost”, then the whole lot of us would probably have sat in the Opposition. But let us go on with section 13.

When are you coming to the point?

I have been speaking to the point all along. When one is speaking to the point, it is painful to that hon. member, but it is because he is such an insignificant point that he finds it painful. The proposed new section 13A goes on to provide—

Sir, I do not know whether it is possible to have more explicit language to indicate that in this respect there must be a suspicion that certain things are being done, not only that people are omitting to do certain things, as one also finds in other Acts, but also that certain things are positively being done; in other words, the suspicion that something is happening. What functions are these so-called police or cultural police, to which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred, to carry out? Sir, I do not want to call those people “cultural police”; I want to call them “investigators”. People who investigate certain things are not policemen. Even the policeman can only be called as a witness in a court as an investigating officer. But in cases where we are dealing with statutory boards and where inspectors investigate certain matters, they submit a report to the person who appointed them and under whose power they are acting, and only then do the rest of the provisions of this section follow. But hon. members opposite are going further; they want to suggest that such an investigator may enter a place and may remove all the copies of a certain publication which are found there and which appear to be offensive. Sir, this section explicitly provides that such an inspector may seize “any publication”, and not all the copies published. In other words, he may take one which he suspects to be offensive and then take it to the Publications Control Board. The very purpose of this amendment is this: We found ourselves in a dilemma in regard to the so-called tell-tales, about whom the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has been complaining so much. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that we were now going to get cultural police to investigate matters. But he already had objections to the small number of tell-tales who brought certain things to the notice of the Publications Control Board. It is in fact by way of these investigators that we now want to eliminate those tell-tales about whom the hon. member for Bezuidenhout complained, for, Sir, matters can now be investigated; now there is no longer any need for the Publications Control Board to chase after all these telltales for odd bits of information; now they can investigate matters properly. In the past these matters had to be brought specifically to the attention of the Publications Control Board. Under an Act such as this one we now want to apply control and look after the morals of the nation. Sir, I am neither enlightened nor verkramp, but I want to say this to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and other hon. members on that side: In the world in which we live today, one must display realism. I grant that we shall find people in South Africa who are hyper-conservative, but then hon. members opposite should also grant that we shall also find in South Africa people who are hyper-liberalistic.

Like Japie Basson.

None of us can really determine the morals of our nation today, but if we try to do so and we have an Act such as this one under which we established a statutory board, then it is only fair that that statutory body should at least be provided with the necessary machinery to enable it to do so; then it is also no less than fair that, if we are not opposed to control or to censorship, we should use as effectively as possible the machinery with which we provide that Publications Control Board and that we should also see to it that that machinery operates as effectively as possible. Sir, I find it pointless that the hon. members can came forward here with these arguments, as was done by the hon. member for Green Point in regard to section 6, where he said that portions could not be excised, that it should be a case of all or nothing. Sir, that is a fatalistic approach to life. In the opinion of the Publications Control Board there may be certain portions which are offensive and which have to be excised, but now the Opposition expects them to set to work in a childish manner like a Std. 5 boy who, when he does not want to share the apple with his sister, hits the apple out of his mother’s hand. Sir, this is absolutely childish. Surely, we are in fact there to see to these things. That is the function of the Publications Control Board. If the world of entertainment can be set right by pointing out to them a certain minor incident and by telling them that if that portion is excised the matter would be in order, then surely, they would be acting in the interests of the world of entertainment as well as the interests of the manufacturer. We are not thinking of the sour-faces mentioned by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout when he referred to the members of the Publications Control Board. I wonder whether the hon. member for Bezuidenhout would refer to the sour-faces when he speaks of the members of the council of any university.

I did not refer to the Publications Board as Mother Grundies.

I wonder whether he would do that. I wonder whether he would refer to sour-faces in referring to the Executive Church Council of the D.R. Church? I want to know this from the hon. member. Let him say it today.

No, but tell us whether you dance.

Yes, the hon. member can take lessons from me if he wants to! Sir, that is exactly what one can expect from the Opposition. When we are dealing with the morals of a nation, when I am pointing out to this House that the Opposition pretends to be opposed to the methods whereas they are actually opposed to censorship, an hon. member with the status and dignity of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout comes along and asks a backbencher on this side whether he dances! Let me ask the hon. member a counter-question. Do you still beat your wife?

If he were to dance, he would do an egg-dance.

I do not think we can afford to spend any more time on such pointless questions as were asked by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. Let us treat this matter seriously, since we are considering here an Act which deals with a statutory board that has been established, an Act which deals with the machinery which has to be at the disposal of that statutory board, and an Act which we want to phrase in such terms that the spirit of control and the spirit of censorship may be carried into effect in the most effective manner by way of the machinery which we are placing at the disposal of a statutory board such as the Publications Control Board.

I think there are only a few minutes left before this debate expires, but I would like to say one or two things. The hon. member who has just sat down, the hon. member for Witbank, and also the hon. member for Kuruman, seemed to place enormous importance on the activities of the board to maintain moral standards in South Africa. I am astonished at this, because there are very few countries indeed in the world that require censorship boards or publications boards to maintain the morals of their country. The only other countries that I know of that have boards like this are Ireland and, I believe, Queensland in Australia. For the rest, there are no boards. The morals of the country are left to institutions like family life, to the churches and to the educationists. They do not need statutory boards to look after the morals of the community. We have had this board in operation for the past eight years and I want to know whether the morals of this country have indeed shown such an improvement, or whether, if we look at violent crime in South Africa, if we look at the divorce rate in South Africa, if we look at the immorality figures, we can claim that the functions of the board have been such that the morals of South Africa have appreciated considerably during the period that this board has operated. I believe that is nonsense, but here the Minister comes along with a Bill which is designed to widen the powers of that board, presumably to improve our morals still further. Well, I do not believe that anything like this is going to make the slightest difference to the morals of South Africa. A country’s morals depend simply on its intrinsic fibre and the intrinsic belief it has in decent standards of living, and not on the actions of any publications board. There are other laws, as I have said before, that can deal with blatant obscenity, but boards like this make no difference to the general standards and morals of a country.

As for clause 7, which sets up this new inspectorate, member after member has talked about an inspectorate of experts. Will they show me where in this Bill is there any mention of training and of the expertise required for the persons to be appointed by the hon. the Deputy Minister who may go around examining premises to find whether there is anything undesirable on those premises? All this clause says is that any person, including any member of the board authorized thereto in writing by the Minister, either generally or specifically, will do this work. In other words, it can be a general power which is given to any person to enter any premises. Where does the hon. member for Witbank or the hon. member for Kuruman get the idea, that the person who is going to be appointed will necessarily be an expert? What nonsense! They will be of the same calibre as the panel of the film board, people like the ladies some of whom have been sitting there since 1950, examining films, and I might say that they could not have been so young when they were originally appointed. But they have been sitting there for 15 or 20 years examining films. There is no guarantee whatsoever that there will be anybody who has expertise or who has any knowledge whatsoever of modern attitudes. Sir, I suggest it is time that South Africa started falling in line with modern attitudes instead of pursuing its own bigoted path away from the path of civilized countries. Hon. members talk about the permissive society. Well, let me say that if I had to choose between the dreary bigotry which is being imposed on this country by censorship boards and other governmental agencies, and the gay, permissive society of Europe, I would rather choose the latter.

Why don’t you go, then?

I may, but at the moment I still think there is hope here. [Interjections.]

Business interrupted in terms of Standing Order No. 136.

At the start I want to clear up a misunderstanding, one which has found its way to the newspapers and which, from what I see here in Hansard, has now perhaps become more of a misunderstanding. I want to explain to this House in the same way as I did last year, that the constitutional task in regard to the work of the Publications Control Board is mine. It is not the Minister’s task. In terms of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, I am responsible for the Publications Control Board, and I do not think it fair towards the Minister to try to implicate him by referring to his unwillingness to talk about this, etc. I felt I wanted to put the record straight as far as this matter is concerned. [Interjections.] Yes, he did say he would talk about it, but he has said enough about it. He even made interjections as well. He made interjections, and that is talking. The Minister has no obligations as far as this Bill is concerned. Hon. members should kindly understand this.

But he promised that he would speak.

I listened carefully to what was said by the hon. members opposite as well as hon. members on this side, and I want to thank them for their contributions. We have now come to the conclusion of the debate on this Bill. I am afraid we have once again followed the same course we did in the Second Reading. I now start with the hon. member for Green Point.

It was obvious throughout the debate that his disapproval as a whole was not so much directed at this Bill, although he did mention a few of the aspects which emerge from these new provisions, but that the whole spirit of his opposition was in fact directed at the 1963 Act. But there is one aspect I want to mention immediately. He spoke of misinterpretations, but he is one of the people who are guilty of misinterpreting and of sending those misinterpretations into the outside world. He said: “It will eliminate the aspect of public opinion.” He was speaking of the Bill before this House. He is wrong. This is a misinterpretation he repeated here today. I want to ask him whether he is not the person who, after the original legislation had been published, was quoted in the newspapers as having said that no foreign magazine of any value dealing with films, would be allowed into the country in future.

That is correct.

That is what I deduced. That is a misinterpretation of the provisions of the original Bill. I repeatedly explained that his deduction and that of the newspapers involved in this matter had been totally wrong. Because they had been so completely wrong in regard to their main deduction, they tried to apply everything to the two less important sections which we changed. In that regard I want to provide some clarity.

The hon. member put a few questions to me, and I am going to reply to them in brief, although I did reply to them before. I just want to repeat my replies quickly. I shall not waste the time of this House. The hon. member asked why South-West Africa was being included here. I said that Parliament had decided on this. I stand by this. Then the hon. member said that something should be done which is in fact impossible to do, i.e. to draft the provisions of this Bill in a way which would allow of the courts deciding what was undesirable. Does the hon. member not know that one cannot define anything so closely in legislation that differences of opinion will not arise even among judges and people who have legal training? We are referring to reasonable people here. Various kinds of people are reasonable people. We cannot define everything so comprehensively and to the last detail that all interpretation problems will be eliminated for any court or any advocate.

The hon. member was opposed to the inspectorate as well. The inspectorate is being established to assist the public as well. It is not being established to assist only the board. At the moment the public has to buy publications or objects and then submit them. The inspectorate enables the board to send someone to determine whether something is the case, and then it can take a decision. In other words, it is designed to help the public in this regard as well.

The hon. member asked why provision was being made for prohibiting entertainments only in part in certain cases. This is being done because it will and can be used to the good. I have already mentioned certain examples to prove that when there is a total prohibition, one can cause a person much damage, for example in the case of a good satire which contains only a small undesirable section which is not really essential to the whole. If one prohibtis only that section, one can in fact allow the impresarios, the people who present these satires and other entertainments, etc., to continue their main performance. I tried to explain it all as well as I could.

†There was his concern about legitimate theatre, for instance plays. The board’s records prove that they very rarely interfere in matters of this nature. I think, however, that much good can be achieved by pruning certain shows, rather than completely banning them.

Like Canterbury Tales?

That was not banned. The hon. member said that the board’s work was veiled in complete secrecy. Last year this board held an exhibition of undesirable material, of publications, etc., in order to let the public and members on both sides of the House see what they have to cope with.

Not the public.

They saw various cuts that had been made, and so on. Is that veiling their activities in secrecy? I think that statement of the hon. member was not correct. I should like to add that all the decisions of the board are published. For instance, items banned are published and more often than not one can learn their nature from the very title of these banned publications.

Like “Black Beauty?”

It is not customary for a board of this kind, or for most boards, to sit in public, to publicise their arguments or to give motivations for their decisions. Members on the opposite side know that. The right of appeal—and this is important—ensures that all doubtful or wrong decisions are brought to light. There has been only about one dozen appeals in seven years, and hon. members complain so loudly about the bannings. It is clear that in perhaps 99 per cent of the cases there is no ground for an appeal. That is what the record shows. In any case I will go on to the two questions posed by the hon. member.

*The hon. member put two questions to which I must reply very clearly here. He asked whether a film intended for public exhibition in which cuts were made after it had been submitted to the board, could be exhibited in private with the cuts.

Or a copy of it.

Yes, he asked whether that film with the cuts, i.e. the original version, could be exhibited in private. The reply to that is, “Yes, the film may be exhibited in private by a private person, provided he does not exhibit it with the idea of making money out of it, or for direct or indirect compensation”.

So we have a privileged class.

We shall come to that. Then he asked me whether a film which had been banned, could nevertheless be exhibited. Yes, if it is not a pornographic film, it may be exhibited in private by the person in possession of that film, provided it is not intended for public exhibition. He may exhibit it in private provided that it is not a pornographic or blue film, because we do not intend making inroads on the private rights of people by going into their homes and taking that private right away. I told him this time and time again and must repeat it to him once more, because he tried to create the impression that he had not understood it when I repeated it earlier.

He did not understand it.

Yes, possibly he did not understand it, but I think all the same that the hon. member did in fact understand it. In any case, he knows only too well that the Police may only take action when these people try to make money out of it. Now he speaks of a “privileged class”. The hon. members are now trying to create a facade of sacro-sanctity. I now want to ask the hon. member whether, if he were in a position to do so, he would change the Act in such a way so as to allow of the Police Entering private homes where people were exhibiting for themselves and without compensation a film, not a pornographic or blue film, but merely one containing cuts which could be seen abroad. Would he allow that?

Yes, I would allow it.

Very well, he would allow that. These people are so concerned about private rights of people. Then why are they so concerned about our wanting to appoint inspectors for reporting undesirable publications to the board, something which does not even apply to private homes?

If the cuts had been reasonable, I would say yes.

Wait a moment. The hon. member can leave all those conditions aside now. The hon. member said he was in favour of it and that he would allow all these things. Yet he does not want to allow an inspector appointed by the Minister to enter not private homes, but only places in respect of which it may be suspected on reasonable grounds that undesirable publications or objects are being published exhibited, or sold, etc., in those places. This he will not allow. Mr. Speaker, in this respect one can very clearly see the inconsistency in the approach of the Opposition. It shows them up for what they are. They are nothing but opportunists.

As regards the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I just want to tell him that there has always been control over films. There has been control as far back as my memory goes, and even before that time. As far back as 1892 the Obscene Publications Act was on the Statute Book. In 1931 another Act dealing with censorship was passed, namely the old Censorship Act. In terms of that Act, the Minister had all the powers. It is interesting that at present the Minister has fewer powers than the Minister had at that time. This was the only Act in that regard ever to be called censorship Act. Hon. members opposite say that they are in favour of the principle of this matter. I may just inform members that it was a National Party Minister, namely Dr. D. F. Malan, who introduced that legislation. At that time it was a United Party member as well, namely Col. Deneys Reitz—the history of opposition to any form of control goes back that far—who riduculed it. This is how matters go.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout once again revealed the spirit of opposition to the Act as such and to the whole idea of it. Words such as “cut to pieces”, “vulture”, etc., were used in this House. In addition, he said that the Government had made the Act more dour. It has not been made more stringent. I have indicated two instances where the legislation has been relaxed. For example, there is the partial prohibition which may be placed on certain entertainments. There is another example as well, but unfortunately I do not have it here with me now. But there are two insances in respect of which the legislation is now less stringent than before.

I am sorry that when the hon. member started giving his objections? he once again tried to belittle the people who support this legislation. I think the hon. member must abandon that tendency. It is a wrong tendency. There may be Mother Grundies among these people who support this legislation. I accept that. But the vast majority of them are balanced people. They are people to whose opinions I may and shall listen more readily than to those of the Opposition. I cannot do otherwise.

The hon. member again dealt with South-West Africa. Well, in regard to South-West Africa, I am not going to feed the Opposition’s urge to derive political advantage from the South-West Africa situation and the application of the Act there any further. I simply want to ignore it, because the application of the legislation there has never been controversial. It is nonsense to speak of one of 55 clauses which is not applicable there. The hon. member referred to obscurities. I gave him a very thorough explanation of the so-called obscurities regarding the question of influencing and what it involves, to which he referred. I am not going to go into that again. I also think I will be pardoned for not doing so again.

I think the hon. member was being alarmistic, especially where he said towards the end that our young film industry would be harmed by this legislation. These people, as well as the hon. member, should simply read through the Bill properly once more. Then they would see that our young film industry is in no danger at all. On the contrary, they have the board’s sincerest sympathy. Nothing in this Bill prohibits public opinion or a polemic. Yesterday I put this very clearly. In spite of that, the hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Kensington again came forward with that story today.

The hon. member for Kensington in particular was very amusing this afternoon with his fantasies about the origin of this legislation. I actually enjoyed it. He again came with the story of Jaap Marais, etc. I think he was making an unsuccessful attempt at having his Second Reading read. However, I just want to tell the hon. member something about the origin of an Act. Personalities are not involved in the origin of an Act, nor is it mentioned in, the information divulged to this House. The reasons for an Act are explained. A number of bodies and persons are involved in such an Act, but they are not discussed in this House. Therefore the hon. member has utterly lost his bearings in continually claiming that it should be made known who initiated this legislation. I think the hon. member is out of step with the normal procedure of Parliament. The hon. member tried to evoke me, but did not succeed in doing so. Well, let us call it a day.

†As far as the hon. member for Houghton is concerned, I should like to say that, in my opinion, the hon. member is not well informed in regard to censorship in other countries. In most of the Catholic countries for instance and in Austria, West Germany, Ireland, which the hon. member mentioned and Spain, to mention a few, there is some form of censorship. The hon. member only spoke about Ireland. I think she is not well informed in this regard. Therefore, I cannot agree with her.

I think the hon. member for Houghton made only two points and the second was in regard to inspectors. As far as the inspectors are concerned, I should just like to tell her again that they will be appointed by the Minister. Their actions will be covered by regulations. Those regulations are still to be made.

What type of experts, as the hon. member has said, will they be?

I never spoke about experts.

*They need not be experts either.

I think I have come to the end of my replies. I just want to say that I trust that the application of this legislation in the period which lies ahead of us, will convince also the Opposition, the press and the people of South Africa that we are applying this legislation for promoting the wellbeing, the morale and to a large extent also the material welfare of our people. The legislation will be applied in this way and not with discrimination or for the purpose of prosecuting people. It will be done only for the general well-being of the people. For that reason the legislation has been introduced, and for that reason and also in that way, the legislation will be applied.

Motion put and the House divided:

Ayes—84: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Campher, J. H.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, S. F.; Cruywagen, W. A.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Gerdener, T. J. A.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, S. F.; Kotzé, W. D.; Langley, T.; Le Roux, F. J.; Le Roux, J. P. C.; Loots, J. J.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, H.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Prinsloo, M. P.; Rail, J. J.; Rail, J. W.; Rail, M. J.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman. B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, P. S.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Staden, J. W.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Wyk, A. C; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: P. C. Roux, G. P. van den Berg, H. J. van Wyk and M. J. de la R. Venter.

Noes—41: Bands, G. J.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cillie, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Malan, E. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Von Keyserlingk, C. C.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wiley, J. W. E.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers R. M. Cadman and J. O. N. Thompson.

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District made certain proposals concerning the possibility of substituting agreements under section 40 for the provisions of the Bill now before this Committee. I regard it as my duty to react to that in brief. In the first place I want to point out that the hon. member said, inter alia, the following—

Although I did make this quite clear in the Second Reading debate I want to repeat at this stage that we have no intention of forcing local authorities into this plan. Our approach to this matter has always been —this is also my personal approach—to try to gain the co-operation of the local authorities in this plan. We shall continue to move along that line. Therefore, we do not want to force any local authority into this against its wishes. This is the first point I should like to emphasize.

In the second place I should like to tell hon. members on the opposite side that my Department, I myself and the bodies directly concerned in this matter, i.e. I.A.N.A., the body of the officials who have to do the work of all the local authorities throughout the country and the U.M.E., which is the representative body of all these local authority councillors, have been struggling for more than two years with this problem of whether section 40 agreements should be the answer to achieving the stated objectives. which I do not want to repeat now, or whether there is any alternative which should be accepted. A great deal of trouble was taken to find an answer to this. I just want to tell hon. members that I have the permission of I.A.N.A. to say in this House that their officials criss-crossed the country and sounded out officials in order to ascertain what the attitude and the feelings were and in order to see whether section 40 agreements were not the answer. After they had done so and after my Department and I had had various and very lengthy discussions, some of which lasted a full day and even part of the evening with I.A.N.A. and the U.M.E., discussions at which all of us were open to conviction that section 40 agreements might be the answer to the problem of achieving the objectives of creating mobility of labour, achieving better administration and bringing experts into the administration we jointly came to the conclusion that it was not possible to do so along the lines of a section 40 agreement. I repeat that initially I myself was in favour of section 40 agreements. When I.A.N.A.’s people were circulating amongst the local authorities and inquiring into this matter, they particularly came up against, as it was put in writing for me, the following argument: “We are not prepared to provide accommodation to the Bantu of local authority B or local authority C, because we know that their wages are higher than ours, and they will entice our good workers away and we shall have to be satisfied with their rejects”. It would be possible for me to mention numerous examples, for instance the wages of Boksburg are lower than the wages of Germiston, and consequently one is faced with the practical problem of not always being able, with the best will in the world, to enter into a section 40 agreement.

Now hon. members should understand my position in this regard. I.A.N.A. discussed, considered and very thoroughly analysed, inter alia, the proposal of the Johannesburg United Party local authority concerning section 40 agreements, and unanimously came to the conclusion that that proposal was not acceptable and not feasible in practise for the whole of the Republic. I was then confronted with a unanimous decision of I.A.N.A., i.e. that they could not accept that proposal. They advanced extremely well motivated reasons for not being able to accept that proposal. Sir, now you will understand my position. I have a body of officials who have taken a decision on this matter, and surely I and my Department have to work with those officials. Surely one cannot expect to obtain mobility of labour and to promote better administration if the officials are not in favour of a certain proposal. Therefore one comes up against a very strong argument, because after the officials who are most directly concerned in this matter have criss-crossed the country, have come to a decision and have informed one of that decision, one cannot ignore it. Therefore this is another very important argument.

During these discussions we also considered whether section 40 agreements should not be made enforceable. Take, for example, the case of five or 10 local authorities on the Witwatersrand being prepared to consider the possibility of entering into a section 40 agreement and one or two local authorities not being prepared to do so for various practical reasons. We then considered whether provision could not be made in the Act for enforcing a section 40 agreement on any local authority that wilfully refuses to enter into such an agreement, whereas the other are prepared to do so. I now want to read to you from the minutes of that specific meeting at which the matter was discussed in detail, what our law advisers had to say in this regard (translation): “If section 40 had to be amended so as to allow of compulsion to co-operate being exercised and of no detached areas remaining outside such an agreement, the amendment to section 40 would be so extensive that it would have to replace the present Urban Areas Act. Such a step would also necessitate wide amendments to the Bantu Trust and Land Act, the Bantu Labour Act, the Levy Act and other Acts.” I am now asking you, Sir, to understand the position with which one is faced. One wants to consider the matter absolutely impartially but is faced with the fact that expert advice was taken after the matter had been discussed in detail by all interested parties and that they then came to the conclusion reflected in this Bill on the basis of that advice and those discussions. I am emphasizing these aspects in an attempt to convince hon. members that here we are not dealing with an ill-considered matter. We have had six drafts of this Bill. This is in fact the seventh draft and each draft was discussed in detail with the people directly concerned in the matter. The proposals of the Johannesburg City Council included, inter alia, the proposal that action be taken in terms of a section 40 agreement; that a larger labour area be established by the Minister after consultation—please note, “after consultation”, not “in consultation”; secondly, that a local authority part only with Bantu not required by such a local authority, and that the Bantu be employed only in the same category of work. I ask hon. members: What will be the reaction of the officials of other local authorities who deal with Bantu labour if this written proposal of the Johannesburg City Council, i.e. that a local authority part only with those Bantu not required by it, were to be accepted? Surely they would argue. “I am going to get the poorer ones and that other local authority will keep the best ones for itself”. In the third place the Johannesburg City Council proposed that only one or more members be appointed for all the participating local authority councillors. The most important of all is that they proposed that one local authority be the convenor and that such a convening local authority be appointed or designated by the Minister, and that a budget in respect of the administration expenses be drawn up by the convenor and that such expenses be paid by the other local authorities. If other local authorities were to be confronted with such a proposal coming from a city council, the account of which shows a deficit itself, surely they would not be prepared to agree to such a local authority being designated convenor; nor would one get any Minister who would be prepared to designate such a local authority convenor. Surely that is asking too much; one cannot do it. Finally, the Johannesburg City Council proposed that all monies in all Bantu Revenue Accounts be pooled. Hon. members will indeed realize that other local authorities will not accept this proposal.

Sir, if you were to analyse the position regarding section 40 agreements, you would see that there were specific circumstances under which section 40 agreements had been entered into, and you would also see that there were extremely few section 40 agreements. There is a reason for that. If you were to look at the one in respect of Thembisa, for example, you would see that one party, i.e. Germiston, had a local Bantu residential area but not the other party concerned in the agreement. Therefore, there was motivation. If you were to look at the section 40 agreement between Sebokeng and Vanderbijlpark, you would see the motivating reason was that the one required electricity and that the other could supply the electricity. In this way you would find that there was a reason for each of the few section 40 agreements but you would not find that increased mobility of labour had been created in one case. Therefore I want to repeat that it was not possible for us to use section 40 without our having to amend a whole number of other Acts.

In conclusion just this: Hon. members must realize that the Bill before this Committee at the moment, does not detract a jot or title from the section 40 agreements. Section 40 is being retained in the Act just as it has been on the Statute Book since 1964. If. after this Bill had been passed, there still were to be local authorities or other bodies that wished to enter into section 40 agreements, they would be completely at liberty to do so. I think hon. members on the opposite side have to concede to me that we have a reasonable case here; that we are not going to force local authorities; that we have the co-operation of local authorities; that we have had the best expert advice in this respect at our disposal; and that we have arrived at the conclusion in the end that this is the best way. For these reasons I regret that I cannot accept the friendly request of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District in connection with this matter.

Mr. Chairman, I have listened with very great interest to the long explanation of the hon. the Deputy Minister about not wanting to force unwilling municipalities to accept the board and so on. Sir, I see his difficulty in one way but what I cannot understand is why he has to make it so difficult for the municipalities to accept this part of the legislation, which will enable greater mobility of labour, by including later clauses, which mean that the board takes over all the functions that the municipalities used to exercise under the Urban Areas Act. If two municipalities are willing to join—let us say Johannesburg and Germiston—or if other municipalities along the East Rand or the West Rand, for that matter, are willing to join in order to increase the mobility of the Africans living within the municipal areas, then I do not see why, in exchange such municipalities should have to give up all their local governmental functions and jurisdiction over the townships that they administer. I do not see why these things have to tie up in this way. Why cannot the mobility of labour be dealt with as a separate issue altogether? The hon. the Deputy Minister puts an absolutely unacceptable bargain in front of the municipalities. [Interjections.] Well, it is unacceptable. The employers of labour in the Johannesburg municipal area have for a long time been pressing for greater labour mobility. They have this difficulty: They are contractor employers and they want to move certain of their labourers residing in Soweto to work in Alberton or Germiston or somewhere else along the Rand, but they are not allowed by law to do so because these people have to work in the areas in which they are domiciled already.

The purpose of this legislation is to enable employers of labour to move such workers over to other municipal areas, and the hon. the Deputy Minister is helping himself at the same time because in terms of his philosophy he is stopping more Africans from being brought into the urban areas as contract labourers by enabling those already there to be used elsewhere. But in order to achieve this desirable greater mobility of labour, the municipalities have also got to accept clause 11, for instance. Clause 11 says that the board takes over all the rights, powers, functions, duties and obligations under the Urban Areas Act. Why is this necessary? The hon. the Deputy Minister has not explained this. He has explained that section 40 of the existing Urban Areas Act is not sufficient to allow the administration of these areas to be joined together for the purposes of mobility. But he does not tell me why, in accepting greater mobility, he is making it compulsory—because apparently you cannot accept the one without the other—for the municipalities to accept a complete take-over, as it will be, by his board of all the functions which up till now have been exercised by an urban authority in respect of the Africans in that area. I do not understand it, and I cannot understand why the hon. the Deputy Minister does not have the words “with the approval of” instead of “in consultation with” the local authorities.

We have argued that point already.

We have not really, because the hon. the Deputy Minister’s argument now is that he is not going to force this on anybody. Well, if you are not going to force it on them, you are going to do it with their approval and therefore you could put it into the law.

Let me once more explain the matter to the hon. member for Houghton and other hon. members. If one decides that one wants to create greater labour mobility and that one wants to refurbish the Administration, one is faced with more than one local authority if one creates a larger administration area. In this connection I want to say immediately that it is specifically we on this side of the House who do not see the Bantu merely as a pair of hands or as a labourer; we specifically take account of and realize that the Bantu is also a person with housing needs, with a need for social facilities, health services and all those things. Here we are dealing with a situation where we have, for argument’s sake, ten local authorities, each with its delimited area, its prescribed area, its Bantu residential area, its loans in that respect and its own officials.

In many cases each of the administrations is powerful in itself. If one now decides to create a larger administration area in which ten or more local authorities, as well as non-prescribed areas if it is on the platteland, are going to share, one will find people saying, as the Iana investigation found: “I shall not be prepared to conclude an agreement in terms of which the loans of the Bantu in that local authority are in excess of the loans of my Bantu, because this is going to create problems for me. I cannot enter into such an agreement as a result of the fact that soon I shall have to accept responsibility for housing while I am struggling to straighten out my own housing here in my own Bantu residential area.” Those are the practical difficulties one is faced with, and now this is the answer. The position we are faced with is that if one wants to create a larger administration area, the logical conclusion one comes to is that one must consequently create and establish a central administrative instrument at the same time that can control all these matters without one having all these co-partnership problems and difficulties. It is not a question of “driving a bargain”. Here we are doing what we say we are doing in a honest endeavour to realize our desires. To be able to do this one needs one central instrument to bridge all those practical problems; and in order to give that central instrument the necessary legal force and powers, one needs this Act, and not in order to offend local authorities.

In the Committee Stage I shall try to give further proof of how we specifically want to involve local authorities in this. That is why we provide in clause 3 that every local authority will have a person there; but if one is dealing with 20 or 30 local authorities, as is the case in order to create a larger administration area in certain places, so that one can at least realize one’s ideals, must one now appoint more than one? Because already one is saddled with a board of 30 or more members, and one must also make provision for the other people. Because one needs a central instrument to be able to handle these matters, it was not possible to act in terms of section 40, whereas it is possible in terms of this Bill that has been received outside with so much acclamation after all the experts had worked on it.

The Minister, in motivating this clause, spent most of his time assuring the Committee that he has the unanimous support of the Institute of Urban Administrators. As far as the administrators are concerned, I am not surprised that they give this measure their support. After all, they are only administrators, and the more power they can get in their own hands to administer without interference, the happier they are. Any administrator would like to do that.

But you have to deal with them, irrespective of what you say now.

Of course you have to deal with the administrators because they have to carry out the policy, and if they are administrators of a municipality they carry out the directions of the municipality.

What would you do if you were faced with a unanimous decision by them?

If the Government went to the Civil Service and asked them whether they wanted Parliament or whether the Government should give control into their hands completely without interference from anybody, what would they say unanimously? Of course they would take it. Sir, that is no argument. The administrators obviously would want to get as much control into their own hands as possible; then they can administer as they like. The Minister says there will be a board, but what kind of a board will it be? The board will be the instrument of the Minister and the board will be so controlled by the Minister through regulations and otherwise that they will do what the Minister wants them to do. Why has anybody accepted this measure? Why have the Bantu accepted this measure and why have commerce and others accepted it? For one reason only, namely for mobility of labour, because they want to be able to move the labour because the labour has become so essential. As the hon. member for Houghton said, you can allow the mobility of labour without taking away all authority from the municipalities. I think the Minister will admit that from the outset it was the policy of the Government to take the administration out of the hands of the municipalities. They set out to do that.

No, that is not true.

Will the Minister tell us that they set out in their first measure to leave the administration in the hands of the municipalities?

Of course, yes. It was discussed along those lines all the time.

And is the Minister telling us now that it is only because the administrators said it would be easier if it were taken out of the hands of the municipalities that this is being done?

Not only for that reason, but also for other reasons.

Were the Administrators of the provinces consulted? Were they consulted on this measure?

of course they were consulted.

Was the Administrator of Natal consulted?

They were all consulted, I told you.

And do they all agree with this measure?

As far as my knowledge goes, they all agreed.

The Minister says that section 40 will remain as it is, and if municipalities want to act under section 40 to combine their administrative areas, they can do so. Section 40 was introduced in the first instance because it was considered to be a practical measure. If it was not considered practicable, it would not have been introduced. The Minister says he is leaving section 40 there so that the municipalities can still make use of it. Surely if they can make use of it to administer more than one area together, the only addition he has to make is to allow them to move their Bantu within that area. Either section 40 is practicable or it is not. The Minister said it was not practicable; you cannot have section 40 amended because the wages in some areas differ from the wages in others. But that was the position when section 40 was passed by this House. Then we knew that there were different scales of wages paid in the different areas. Now the Deputy Minister says they do not regard the Bantu merely as units of labour and that they must be given housing. This is the first time I have heard from the Government side that they are not regarded as units of labour. The whole policy was that the Bantu outside the Reserves were units of labour.

It was always our policy to give them a fair modus vivendi in the White part of South Africa.

Well, if you give them a fair modus vivendi in the White parts of South Africa, you must give them homes with their families. Sir, we made our position clear in the Second Reading. We are opposed to this measure because it takes control out of the hands of the municipalities, of the elected representatives of the people who are going to be affected by the way in which the Bantu areas in those White areas are administered. We say it should be left in their control and therefore we will oppose this clause which is the basis of the Bill.

I wanted to ask the hon. the Minister a question. I have listened very carefully to what he said in giving his assurances about his desire not to force any council or local authority to become part of a board, and that the term “consultation” will really mean not only “after consultation” but will virtually mean that he will do everything in his power to ensure that they co-operate with him. If they do not co-operate, he will try to avoid having to establish a board because it will then create conflict between the local authority and himself and he will then be forced to take some action. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether the effects of this will actually be that, when he has established the board, this board will virtually take over every asset, and the entire administration plus officials where possible, and take it completely out of the hands of the local authority, whose sole interest will then remain, purely through a representative, to watch the interests of the citizens of that town or city vis-à-vis the board and its administration. Is that the hon. the Minister’s object? He made it clear that, if he were to make use of an amendment to section 40 as was suggested by the Johannesburg local authority, it would involve amendments to a number of other laws. That, of course, has never seemed to me to be an insuperable task for this Government who have, an insatiable ability to change, amend, re-establish and establish laws. One often wonders at their tremendous capacity. I think that it would be a very much simpler method to have to amend various laws and not disturb a situation which exists in this country. He is going to be involved in an enormous undertaking. Funds are considerably involved in loans and investments, for instance. The present administration has stood the test of time over the years. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister whether all these factors are involved in the establishment of this board? Does the hon. the Minister believe that all this can be achieved, as he says, without any conflict at all, and that it will be achieved purely by the consultation which he envisages? Does he believe that there will be no pressure, no forcing and nothing done on his part to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the discussions between the local authorities and himself? Perhaps he can give us an answer as to what the effect is going to be of what he has assured us is the method by which he is going to deal with this matter. What is the effect going to be on the local authority and what will eventually remain with the local authority in so far as its interest is concerned in this particular board?

Mr. Speaker, I think the Opposition’s standpoint is illogical in so far as they merely accept that all control of all Bantu rests with local authorities. The true position is that, apart from a certain number of Bantu that do fall under the administration of local authorities, there is a very large-scale concentration of Bantu in certain places outside the local authority areas. It is very clear that control must also be applied to those areas. It is very clear that it is not only the local authority that has an interest in the matter. It is clear that in respect of those Bantu adequate and efficient use cannot be made of section 40, even if it were to be amended. It is also clear that at present the Bantu Commissioner has none of the machinery at his disposal with which to exercise any powers or efficient control over those Bantu. That is why, when this procedure is followed and this board is created, it is so necessary for uniformity to underlie the creation of such a board that will exercise efficient control over the whole area, including not only the local authority, but also other bodies concerned. We are thinking particularly of industrial areas, of concentrations falling outside the municipal areas and the powers and jurisdiction of any local authority. That is why it is necessary for us to define this area in this way, and that is also why we support it in this respect.

The hon. member for Ermelo supported the hon. the Minister when he said that it would have been impossible to bring about the same thing under section 40, or by an amendment to that section. I cannot imagine that this is altogether impossible. It is true that Johannesburg possibly proposed an amended section 40. I am sure that improvements might have been effected to that proposal. But I leave it at that.

Actually I just want clarity on two points. Firstly, the hon. the Deputy Minister gave an indication during the Second Reading-debate, and again this afternoon, that this Bill had the support of the United Municipal Executive as well. I think the indication was that they support this clause as well. Now I want to say that my information is that they are definitely opposed to the principle of taking over the powers of local authorities. I received a definite indication from them that they are opposed to that. They are completely opposed to the principle of taking these powers over from the local authorities. I trust that where they might have agreed to an odd change being effected, that should definitely not be taken to mean that they support this principle. I sincerely hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will put the record straight in this regard, because I think it is not fair to them to suggest that this principle of taking over the powers of local authorities is acceptable to them.

Before I sit down, I just want to put one question to the hon. the Deputy Minister. In view of the fact that he now says that all of this will not be forced on the local authorities, I want to ask him to be so kind as to tell us what his intention is? In terms of the definition of his powers in the Bill, he may, after consultation, force these administration boards on them. If it is not the hon. the Deputy Minister’s intention to do so, are they going to be left out and will they proceed with their duties as they are doing today? What will their position then be in respect of the greater mobility of their Bantu labour?

Mr. Chairman, this afternoon I spoke of I.A.N.A.—and let there be no misunderstanding about this matter—which supported this question unanimously after a thorough investigation and visits throughout the country. I did not refer to the support of the U.M.E. this afternoon. At no stage did I speak of that. But in my Second Reading speech I did speak of that. At that time I made it very clear—and there must please not be any misunderstanding about this matter—that there was no unanimity on the principle of the Bill among members of the U.M.E. I stated that very emphatically, and I am now repeating it in reply to the question by the hon. member for Pinelands. There was no unanimity on certain aspects, inter alia, on section 40 of the legislation. There was no unanimity on the principle of the legislation. But the majority of the members of the U.M.E. were in favour of it.

What is the principle?

If section 40 is now regarded as a principle, then all members of the U.M.E. were not in favour of that principle. Is the hon. member satisfied now? But after all the discussions the majority of the members of the U.M.E. were in favour of it. I stated very emphatically in my Second Reading speech—and I should not like to have any misunderstanding in this regard—that after the question of principle had been settled, all members of the U.M.E. gave their support to the Bill itself. I said how highly I appreciated that. There need be no misunderstanding whatsoever in this regard.

Then the hon. member asked what the position would be if we were to say that we would try as far as possible not to force local authorities into larger administration areas and administration boards. But surely I have explained clearly before that the procedure we would follow in this regard, would be to appoint a commission of inquiry on which the local authorities, the U.M.E. and other bodies which I mentioned, would be represented. They would then undertake the necessary investigations at other local authorities which might be brought into such an administration area. In that process we shall then try to obtain the co-operation of those local authorities. This legislation undoubtedly empowers the Government to make the legislation enforceable if a local authority absolutely withholds its co-operation. There is absolutely no doubt about that. However I fervently hope that it will never be necessary to force any local authority, in spite of the powers we are obtaining in this legislation, into co-operating. I repeat that my approach will be the same as it has been over the past two years in connection with this matter, i.e. to obtain the maximum co-operation of all the local authorities. I believe that this matter has such a sound basis and is so well-founded that it will not be difficult to obtain the co-operation of the local authorities in this connection. I firmly believe this. I have reasonable proof that it will not be necessary to exercise force. Lastly, I want to say that if a local authority were to refuse to co-operate, I should not like to go out of my way to force them. Hon. members must take note that I am not giving an undertaking never to force a local authority, and that the legislation gives me the power to do so. I say I hope this will never be necessary and I think it will never be necessary, but if it were to become necessary to force a local authority, hon. members should not later cast it in my teeth that I had given an undertaking this afternoon that I would not do so. I may just tell hon. members that if it were to become necessary to do this, I shall come to this House, if I am spared, with the necessary motivation for why it had been necessary to do so. I repeat, I do not think it will be necessary, and I think I am correct in saying this. Suppose a local authority, hon. members should not later fact that other surrounding local authorities do so, and it should be decided for the sake of harmony to create a larger administration area for the other local authorities, the position is very clear that this is an enabling Bill. Then those other local authorities which did not join and which we do not want to force into it—although we have the power to do so, and if it becomes necessary to use the power we shall not hesitate to do so—will continue to manage their affairs as though this legislation has not been adopted. This is the legal and factual position.

Mr. Chairman, a short while back, in an interchange between the hon. the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Transkei, I thought I heard the hon. the Deputy Minister say that, in the beginning, when he first started negotiations with the local authorities, it was the intention that the local authorities would continue to administer Bantu affairs in their areas. Did I hear this correctly? Did the hon. the Deputy Minister say that the initial inquiries with the local authorities had been along those lines and that the local authorities would retain the control?

I shall reply to that when I reply to your speech.

I did hope to get some indication from the hon. the Deputy Minister that I had heard him correctly. If I heard him correctly, then I have a case to make. If I misheard him, I would be glad to hear it. From the hon. the Deputy Minister’s attitude it would appear that I did hear correctly that he said that the negotiations were initially to allow the local authorities to retain control of the administration of Bantu affairs. I happen to have a copy of the original draft Bill which was submitted to the local authorities by the hon. the Deputy Minister. I cannot see anywhere in this draft Bill where the control is left to the local authorities. The hon. the Deputy Minister takes control under the original draft Bill. The following is stated in clause 2 of this draft Bill—

Clause 3 deals with the constitution of a board and says that a board “shall comprise of one person who shall be designated by the Minister as chairman of the board, one who will be appointed because of his acquaintance…

Order!

The hon. member must come back to clause 2.

With respect, Mr. Chairman, I am dealing with clause 2 and the whole aspect of the negotiations which took place between the hon. the Deputy Minister …

Order!

The hon. member has just mentioned clause 3.

Yes, but it is not clause 3 of this Bill at all. I was talking about clause 3 of a draft Bill which was submitted by the hon. the Deputy Minister to local authorities.

Order! But clause 2 of this Bill is now under discussion.

I am dealing with clause 2 and with the negotiations the hon. the Deputy Minister undertook. There are provisions in this clause laying down that a board shall be established which will be almost identical to the one which is provided for in the Bill now under discussion. There are further provisions in this draft Bill which are the same, for example, those relating to the objects of the board, with particular emphasis on the greater mobility of labour. When we look at the powers of the board we find that it has the power to lease or to purchase property and to appoint from amongst its members a committee or certain committees. It also has the power, with the approval of the Minister, to acquire other land. There is also another important part and this is the answer to the hon. the Deputy Minister, namely that the board shall be vested with all the rights, powers, functions, duties and obligations of an urban local authority in terms of the various Acts which are mentioned in this Bill. How can the hon. the Deputy Minister then say to us that in his initial negotiations with local authorities the idea was that local authorities would retain control? Is this the basis on which the hon. the Deputy Minister says that he has the support of local authorities in this matter? I fail to see that he has this support and I am glad that he has now conceded the point that the United Municipal Executive does not support him in this matter.

I said the majority supported it.

I am sorry that I missed that point and I accept the hon. the Deputy Minister’s word when he says that the majority accepted it. But does he mean the majority of the members of the Association or is he talking about the majority of the members of the Executive? I accept his word that the majority support it, but I do not believe that the United Municipal Executive as such took a resolution supporting the hon. the Deputy Minister in this matter.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District makes the mistake of looking at the original Bill and, because he finds no provision made there for municipalities to undertake the administration, coming to the conclusion that for that very reason this matter has not been investigated. The hon. the Deputy Minister said a moment ago, and the hon. member for Pinelands also referred to it, that it was in fact at the suggestion of the Johannesburg City Council that the Institute of non-White Administrators thoroughly investigated the possibility whether this could not be left as it is and whether only section 40 could be amended. To me this is the most important proof that one cannot simply change section 40 and achieve one’s object. However, the Opposition obstinately clings to the idea that one need only do this and that mobility of labour would then be achieved. But the hon. the Deputy Minister put forward several practical reasons why this could not be done. The fact that the Johannesburg City Council made a proposal in which they said a municipality should be appointed, which would have more power than others and which would give them instructions, proves that even the Johannesburg City Council realizes that one cannot simply amend section 40, but that there must be co-ordination between the various local authorities falling within a certain area in order to achieve greater mobility of labour. This is the most important proof we have yet had and it comes from a United Party-con-trolled city council. Those hon. members are not prepared to accept the proof of the Johannesburg City Council. The hon. member for Transkei mentioned a point this afternoon which completely destroyed one of their most important arguments up to now. This is that the Minister is trying to take every possible power for himself here. The hon. member said that these administrators are striving after greater power and that they consequently accent this Bill as it is. But while they are now functioning under a municipality, these administrators will henceforth function under a board. The hon. member then asked which board this was going to be. The Minister is going to be the one who controls the board. He argues that the Minister just wants more power, but now he himself says here that the Minister is going to control the board, while at the same time saying that the administrators are now going to get more power. In that case it surely cannot be that the Minister is going to get more power in terms of this Bill. They themselves are now proving that they are wrong in saying that the Minister is just trying to get more power for himself.

Mr. Chairman …

Order!

The hon. member has already spoken three times. In terms of the Standing Rules and Orders, he is not allowed to speak more than three times.

On this particular clause, Sir?

The hon. member cannot speak on this clause; he has already spoken three times.

Mr. Chairman, I hope you will grant the hon. the Deputy Minister an opportunity of replying. He was kind enough to say that he would give an answer to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. We are all keen to hear what he has to say when he replies to the hon. member.

Mr. Chairman, I should not like to react to that now and argue with the hon. member across the floor of the House. I made the position in respect of this matter very clear. It appears in my Hansard and the hon. member is very welcome to look it up in Hansard. I do not think it is necessary for me to react any further to that now.

Mr. Chairman, I understand from the hon. the Deputy Minister that a decision, where he decides to create these bigger administrative areas, will be in consultation with and with the approval of the municipal authorities. I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister: Is it his ultimate objective that every municipal area right throughout the Republic of South Africa should come under the terms of this legislation? Or will it be possible for the local authorities of smaller municipal areas that are managing quite well on their own at the present time, where the mobility of labour will not be radically affected and where it will not be of very great advantage to them, to decide to opt out of the situation when they can motivate their case? Will it be possible for them to remain unaffected by this legislation?

Then, too, I want to talk of a bigger area. When we discuss this Bill, it seems to have centred around Johannesburg and the municipalities surrounding that city. What will be the position as regards a municipality with a big municipal area where there are some 200 000 Bantu, as in the case of Port Elizabeth, where there may not be any real benefit accruing to such a municipality in terms of a Bill of this kind? If they prefer to go on as they did before, have they also the right to opt out of this legislation, if they can prove that there are no real benefits accruing to them in their particular case? When one considers the Port Elizabeth situation and the bigger administrative area that might be created there, one realizes that there are not many municipalities with which they can combine. We can think only of the Uitenhage municipality.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 23.