Mr. Speaker, I move—

The prevention of cruelty to animals in South-West Africa was entrusted to the Minister of Justice by the South-West Africa Affairs Act, 1969. The purpose of this Bill is to make the South African Acts covering this subject applicable to South-West Africa in the interests of uniformity and sound administration.

There are two such Acts. The first is the Performing Animals Protection Act, 1935. The Afrikaans name of this Act sounds somewhat strange today. The older generation knows what “dresseer” means, but today one seldom hears the word. And yet the “Handwoordeboek van die Afrikaanse Taal” still gives “dresseer” as a verb used for the training of animals, the drilling of people and the coaching of students for an examination. This Act offers no consolation to coached students. It is aimed at affording protection to animals that are exhibited or trained for exhibition. At present South-West Africa does not have a similar Act. In the first eight clauses of the Bill the Performing Animals Protection Act, 1935, is made applicable to South-West Africa and amendments are made to convert pounds to rand, to substitute references to the repealed Act No. 8 of 1914 with references to the present Animals Protection Act, 1962, and to provide for imprisonment as an alternative where at present only a fine is mentioned. While a fine of £25 for a first offender and £50 for a second offender was possibly sufficient in 1935, I am today of the opinion that cases of cruelty to animals can occur at present for which the courts would regard imprisonment as more fitting.

The second relevant Act of the Republic is the Animals Protection Act, 1962, which is aimed at the prevention of cruelty to animals in general. In this case South-West Africa already has comparable legislation, i.e. the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Proclamation, 1919, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment Proclamation, 1938, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Amendment Proclamation, 1950. The 1919 proclamation, however, only declared the old South African Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1914, applicable to South-West Africa. Later amendments of the South African Act of 1914 were also applied respectively by the 1938 and the 1950 proclamations in South-West Africa. The result is that the presently prevailing legislation in South-West Africa is the same as the legislation that was in force locally before the passing of the South African Animals Protection Act, 1962. In his Second Reading speech in connection with the Animals Protection Bill, 1962, the then Minister of Justice said that it was an old Act that was just being modernized. By now also replacing the South-West Africa legislation with the South African Animals Protection Act of 1962, the modernization process is being carried through to South-West Africa. In clauses 9 to 12 the implementation and concomitant amendments are done.

Sir, as the hon. the Minister has indicated, the real, main purpose of this Bill is to extend its provisions to South-West Africa and we have no objection to that. In addition, in terms of the modern Criminal Code, it makes provision for the alternative of imprisonment in the event of the non-payment of a fine. Sir, one of the things that does strike one is that all that is being done in 1972 is to alter the fine of £25 provided for in the 1935 legislation for a contravention of the regulations or a contravention of the Act to a fine of R50. It does seem to us, if it was considered in 1935 that £25 (R50) should be the maximum penalty for a contravention of the Act or of the regulations, that this figure should be proportionately higher in the year 1972.

Especially after devaluation.

As my hon. friend says, especially after devaluation, which no doubt the drafters of the Bill did not take into account.

Order! That is merely by the way.

Yes, that is merely by the way—en passant, as they say. Sir, the hon. the Minister will appreciate that there has been considerable public awareness and concern about the training and exhibiting of performing animals. Indeed, Sir, some years ago I presented to Parliament a number of petitions from people who were concerned about this and who wanted the training and exhibiting of performing animals banned, and indeed the hon. the Minister at that time agreed to receive a deputation of the persons concerned. In all these circumstances, it does seem to us, especially having regard to the public awareness in this matter, that the penalty provided for in this year 1972 is somewhat disproportionate to the penalty provided for in 1935, and we hope that the hon. the Minister will give his attention to this aspect before we come to the Committee Stage. At this stage, Sir, we agree that this Bill should be extended to South-West Africa and we offer no objection at this stage.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This Bill is aimed at the abolition of the South African Admiralty Courts and the transfer of admiralty jurisdiction from these courts to the provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

To most people, including lawyers, the nature of South Africa’s Admiralty Courts is a closed book. The very fact of their existence is not even widely known. But hon. members need not be perturbed because of ignorance of the subject, as no less a person than a former South African Chief Justice had the following to say in an Appeal Court judgment concerning the jurisdiction of Admiralty Courts. He said: “The subject is so special that I express my views with diffidence”. With similar diffidence I will briefly try to explain the history of our Admiralty Courts and the law applied by them, as I understand it.

South Africa’s Admiralty Courts originated from the High Court of Admiralty, which was the Court of the Lord High Admiral of England. There existed historic rivalry between the Lord High Admiral and the common law courts. When the court of the Lord High Admiral was said to have jurisdiction, it meant that that Court not only had jurisdiction to take cognizance of the matter, but also to apply its own law and practice. Thus the High Court of Admiralty had its own rules of practice and applied its own law. Admiralty law constituted the General Maritime law of England, a law differing in several very important respects from the Municipal Law of England.

The Judge of the High Court of Admiralty was styled the Lord High Admiral’s Lieutenant. Because it was in some cases inconvenient to resort to the High Court of Admiralty sitting in England, the Lord High Admiral also appointed his deputies or vice-admirals, and their lieutenants, or judges, in the principal ports of the United Kingdom and its dependencies. These Vice-Admiralty Courts originally exercised the same jurisdiction as the High Court of Admiralty. From time to time certain statutory powers were however given to the High Court but not to the Vice-Admiralty Courts.

This then was the position when the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act was placed on the statute book in 1890. According to its preamble the purpose of that Act was, and I quote: “to amend the Law respecting the exercise of Admiralty jurisdiction in Her Majesty’s Dominions and elsewhere out of the United Kingdom”. And that is what it did: In the United Kingdom the position was left unchanged, but in the colonies the Vice-Admiralty Courts were substituted by independent Colonial Courts of Admiralty in each colony. The Act provided for the declaration of courts in British possessions as Courts of Admiralty, but if no declaration was made in respect of any particular possession, then every court having therein unlimited civil jurisdiction, would be a Court of Admiralty. No declaration under the Act was made in respect of the Cape and Natal, both at the time British possessions, with the result that the high courts of these colonies also became Admiralty Courts when the 1890 Act came into operation on the 1st July, 1891. Throughout South Africa’s constitutional development, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, remained operative in the Cape and Natal. Until this day the Cape of Good Hope Provincial Division, the Eastern Cape Division, the Natal Provincial Division, the Durban and Coast Local Division and probably also the South-West Africa Division in respect of Walvis Bay, can sit as Admiralty Courts. Since Union only six cases where this has happened have been reported. The fact that the same Judges preside in both courts and the fact that the two courts use the same premises and are served by the same officers, may create the impression that any particular division of the Supreme Court and its corresponding Admiralty Court, are one and the same thing.

It may appear as if it is only a question of the exercise of a special jurisdiction by the Supreme Court. This is however not the case. We have in fact two courts which originated apart from each other, developed along completely separate roads and are today regulated by two different statutes, the Supreme Court by the South African Supreme Court Act of 1959, and the Admiralty Courts by the English Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1890. Their procedures are set out in two different sets of rules, the rules of the Admiralty Courts still being the 1883 rules inherited from the Vice-Admiralty Courts.

The most important difference between the two courts is, however, the law which they apply. The Supreme Court adjudicates according to South African law with a Roman-Dutch origin while the Admiralty Courts apply English Admiralty law, being the law applied and developed by the English High Court of Admiralty. In the English case The Gaetano and Marie, Judge Brett described this law as follows—

The matters which our Admiralty Courts have jurisdiction to deal with include cases concerning collisions between ships, salvage, bottomry, seamen’s wages, towage, necessaries supplied to ships, damages done by ships and the ownership of ships. I mention these matters only as examples. There are many other maritime matters which will also fall within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty Courts. The Admiralty Courts exercise their jurisdiction concurrently with the provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court. A litigant can himself decide which court to approach. This very choice open to a dominant litigant immediately brings us to the first problem attending the existence of Admiralty Courts. There are points of conflict between Roman-Dutch law applied by the Supreme Court and English Admiralty law applied by the Admiralty Courts. The final outcome of a particular action may therefore depend upon the court in which it is instituted. Secondly, an important advantage of the Admiralty Courts lies in Admiralty procedure, which includes a simple but speedy procedure for the arrest of ships. The procedure of the Admiralty Courts is however, still regulated by rules compiled in 1883. Furthermore, there is not one single complete set of these rules available at any one of our courts. Lastly the Admiralty Courts are creatues of an 1890 English Act, drafted for a British empire of colonies, the intention having been that the Colonial Courts of Admiralty, together with the British Courts, would uniformly administer Admiralty law over large parts of the world. Needless to say, this state of affairs must in modern conditions give rise to many uncertainties.

Initially we thought that we could solve the problem by just abolishing the Admiralty Courts. This would, however, have meant that we would also have lost English Admiralty law. Although only a few actions were instituted in the Admiralty Courts over the last half a century, and although most of those actions could possibly have been satisfactorily resolved under South African law, it is a fact that English Admiralty law receives almost world-wide recognition. With our ever increasing participation in merchant shipping activities, it can only be to our advantage to retain English Admiralty law, to weave it into South African law where it would be desirable to do so, and to adapt it to changing times by means of the decisions of our courts and legislation.

It is in an attempt to serve this purpose and to solve the related problems that I am introducing this Bill. The Bill abolishes the Admiralty Courts and vests their jurisdiction in the provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court. What we are doing is to create by statute a situation in which the two systems can be applied by one court and in which that court can bring them ever closer together by giving preference to the best from each. By proceeding in this way we will not relinquish anything we now have, but on the other hand we will transfer a facet of our legal administration from an archaic appendage to our Supreme Court where it belongs.

Clause 1 vests admiralty jurisdiction in all the provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court and not only in those which are now also Admiralty Courts, i.e. the coastal courts. This is done, firstly, to prevent difficulties in the case of future changes in the divisions of the Supreme Court; secondly, for the sake of uniformity; thirdly, because it is not impossible that admiralty law principles may later also find application in aviation matters.

Clause 2 provides for the retention of the rules of the Admiralty Courts.

Clause 3 contains the necessary provision for matters which may be pending in Admiralty Courts on the date when they are abolished.

Clause 4 repeals the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, 1890, thereby abolishing the Admiralty Courts.

Clause 5 applies the Bill to South-West Africa. At present only Walvis Bay falls within admiralty jurisdiction.

Clause 6 postpones the commencement of the Bill in order to provide an opportunity for considering the adequacy of the existing rules of court.

Mr. Speaker, this is another Bill to which we have no objection in principle as it, as the hon. the Minister has said, tidies up the position and makes the Admiralty Court the Supreme Court when hearing matters concerning those matters to which the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act applies, subject to the Supreme Court rules which are with us and which are more modern and which are adapted to our conditions and which can be changed readily by the Chief Justice in the circumstances which arise from time to time. The Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1890 conferred the same powers as adhere to the High Court of Admiralty in Great Britain to the civil courts of unlimited jurisdiction in the Commonwealth. We in 1968 repealed that part of the 1890 British Act, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act, in so far as they dealt with prize jurisdiction. Now it seems to us —and I may say that in this regard I have taken the trouble to consult with those who practise in relation to these Admiralty Courts—that there is a feeling of doubt expressed as to whether or not the Colonial Court of Admiralty Act of 1890, which this Bill seeks to apply so far as jurisdiction is concerned to our Supreme Court, is still in existence. This is so because this doubt arises. The 1890 Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act specifically provides that it shall only apply in British possessions. Whatever sort of interpretation one might place on the expression “a British possession” seems to us that we certainly could not apply that term to our country since we became a Republic on 31st May, 1961. So it seems to us that it would be necessary and advisable, even if there is a difference of opinion, to insert in this Bill at the Committee Stage a provision that it “shall be deemed to have been in operation right up to the time of the passing of this Act” or “shall be deemed to have been in operation since 31st May, 1961”, so that there can be no doubt about this. Furthermore, it seems to us that we should also indicate that what we are applying, the jurisdiction we are giving our Supreme Court, is the jurisdiction as it contained in that Act, the Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act of 1890, either now or as at 31st May, 1961, so that there can be no further confusion if the British Parliament were to change that Act, so that one could not say it is that Act as amended by the British Parliament. I would like to indicate at this stage that we will move an amendment to that effect in the Committee Stage. As I say, it is a matter of debate whether they are necessary. I believe the majority view is that they are necessary, but in any case it would do no harm to clarify the position for all time as far as we are concerned.

Sir, we welcome this Bill. We welcome the clarity which it will now bring to practitioners who will not now have to go round looking for the rules of these Admiralty Courts when these cases come before the court. The hon. the Minister is aware that this is a matter of great difficulty. If one in any Bar asks around what one is to do, there are very few people who will be able to tell you. In fact, nobody would be able to tell you where to find the rules, never mind about the actual rule that should apply, unless they have had the experience of having to find them. Once found, like all these strange, English statutory matters, they are never forgotten, and we are delighted therefore that we do not have to put up with this sort of rule, and we can now have the Supreme Court Rules in future.

We have no objection to the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, if I understand the hon. member correctly, he maintains that we might be abolishing a statute which, in any event, does not obtain. I think that is his argument. I do not agree with him, but I shall have a look at it before we come to the Committee Stage.

Secondly, with regard to the rules which the hon. member says are very difficult to obtain, I, as a matter of fact, can go further: They are not obtainable at all. There is not a single Admiralty Court, as a court, or an officer of such a court, who is in possession of such a set of rules. The one court may have a portion of the rules and the other another portion of the rules. However, there is not a single complete set. My department has succeeded in tracing a complete set of rules as far as we know, with Mr. Justice Harcourt of the Natal division. That was in his private possession. Apparently he is a collector. We are now making copies of that to make it available to the Chief Justice for consideration when the re-draft is undertaken.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Section 5 ter (1) of the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, provides that the Minister of Justice may, by notice in the Gazette, prohibit persons who were office-bearers, officers or members of an organization which has been declared to be an unlawful organization from participating, without consent, in certain ways in the activities of other organizations. In this way, for example, the Minister of justice may prohibit persons who were members of the African National Congress from becoming members of student organizations or trade unions. The intention has always been that persons who belonged to the organization at any time before or after the organization was declared to be unlawful shall be subject to such a prohibition. They were associated with an organization which engaged in subversive activities, and the danger therefore exists that they may promote the aims of that organization by means of an innocent lawful organization. It is in the interests of national safety that there should be control over the activities of these persons in vulnerable lawful organizations. Such a prohibition was introduced during 1962. Since then numerous legal proceedings have been instituted against persons who, according to available evidence, belonged to organizations before they were declared to be unlawful. Many were found guilty. In 1969, however, the appeal of a certain Mary Ranta was heard in the Transvaal Provincial Division of the Supreme Court. Although the issue was not decisive, the court nevertheless expressed the opinion that it was unlikely that it had been the intention that such a prohibition should apply to persons who were members of such an organization before the date on which they declared to be unlawful, but were no longer members at the time it was declared to be unlawful.

It is possible that the courts will in future interpret section 5 ter (1) to mean that proof that the accused was a member of the organization before it was declared to be unlawful is no longer sufficient. If that should happen, section 5 ter will to a large extent cease to serve any useful function. It is an almost impossible task to establish or to prove that a particular person was a member of, for example, the African National Congress, 12 years ago when that organization was declared to be unlawful. The amendment which is being effected by clause 1 is aimed at eliminating the uncertainty which has arisen as a result of the Ranta judgment, and to make clear the original intention of section 5 ter.

I now proceed to clause 2. Section 1 of the Newspaper and Imprint Act, 1934, prohibits the printing and publication of a newspaper unless a certificate of registration has been issued to it. When section 6 bis was inserted in the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, it had to be worded in such a way that it corresponded with section 1 of the Newspaper and Imprint Act, 1934. Section 6 bis therefore prohibits the issuing of a certificate of registration in terms of the Newspaper and Imprint Act, 1934, unless the Minister certifies that he has no reason to believe that the newspaper will at any time be prohibited in terms of section 6 of the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, or unless a deposit not exceeding R20 000 as the Minister may determine, has been paid. In 1971 the Newspaper and Imprint Registration Act, was passed. This Act replaces the Newspaper and Imprint Act, 1934. The 1971 Act has not come into operation yet and thus the 1934 Act still applies. The problem is, however, that the 1971 Act prohibits the printing and publishing of a newspaper unless that newspaper has been registered. Whereas the 1934 Act thus requires the existence of a certificate of registration, the 1971 Act requires that the newspaper shall be registered before it may be printed or published. This means that section 6 bis of the Suppression of Communism Act is no longer adjusted to the new Newspaper and Imprint Registration Act. Clause 2, in the first place, now amends section 6 bis in order to effect such an adjustment. As amended by clause 2 section 6 bis prevents the registration of any newspaper if the Minister should have any suspicions regarding it. Subclause 2 (2) provides that the amendment shall come into operation on the date of commencement of the Newspaper and Imprint Registration Act, 1971. In this way the occurrence of a period during which section 6 bis is not consistent with the current law on the registration of newspapers is prevented.

However, clause 2 also amends section 6 bis in another respect. As section 6 bis reads at present, the Minister of Justice shall consider every application for the registration of a newspaper. He must then decide whether he wants to certify that he does not harbour any suspicions in respect of the newspaper, or else he must determine an amount which shall be paid over as a deposit. In all the time section 6 bis has been in existence a deposit has been required in only ten cases. There is an average of five applications for the registration of newspapers per month. It is clear that the existence of section 6 bis deters persons with ulterior motives from making application for the registration of a newspaper. The vast majority of applications are cases where a deposit will obviously not be required. It is therefore unnecessary for every application to go through the whole process. In an attempt to save work and promote efficiency, clause 2 also amends section 6 bis so that it will no longer be necessary to submit every application to the Minister of Justice. As amended, section 6 bis will make the registration of a newspaper possible without a certificate being issued by the Minister. Instead of that, he will have to determine a deposit within 21 days after the application has been received by the Secretary for the Interior; if this is not done, the registration proceeds.

The last clause I want to deal with, is clause 3. Section 10 quat of the Suppression of Communism Act empowers the Minister at any time to order certain persons to report periodically at a police station. However, the section does not empower the Minister of Justice or the magistrate to grant permission, by way of an exception, that the restricted person need not report on a specific day or days. This was probably a mere oversight in the formulation of the original section, for the other sections in terms of which restrictions are imposed all contain this authorization. At the moment permission in the form of an amendment to the notice is granted by me to restricted persons, to the effect that they need not report on a specific day. However, this is a cumbersome procedure. In addition a certain amount of delay is also inevitable because the local magistrate cannot deal with the matter. Clause 3 therefore amends section 10 quat so that the Minister and a magistrate are also, in that case, just as in sections 5, 9 and 10, authorized to grant exceptions.

Mr. Speaker, this is a Bill which the late Mr. Lewis Gay, the former member for Simonstown, would have described as a Bill full of a lot of wordage. I must say that when one looks at clauses 1 and 2 particularly, one appreciates that words sometimes have different meanings for different people.

Mr. Speaker, for the life of us we really do not appreciate why the amendment proposed by clause 1 of this Bill is necessary at all. This clause deals with the power of the Minister in respect of persons who were members, office bearers or officials of an organization declared to be unlawful. The Minister may in terms of this clause impose in respect of those persons prohibitions from joining other organizations, those which he names. As the law stands at the moment he may do this if their names appear on any list in the custody of the officer referred to in section 8, i.e. the liquidator of the Communist Party, the person who makes lists in respect of the Communist Party and any other organization which the Minister instructs him to make lists in respect of whether they were members of those organizations before or after the commencement of the Act. If they are on that list the Minister may make such a prohibition. The law, as it stands at present, also lays down that apart from those lists compiled by the liquidator of the Communist Party, he may also make such orders in respect of persons who are office bearers, officers or members of any organization which has been declared to be an unlawful organization. He does not make the order until it has been shown that he was a member of an unlawful organization. He was such a member either before or after or both. The hon. the Minister has indicated that although not giving a decision on the matter, some Judge in the Transvaal, merely obiter dicta, indicated that there might be some doubt about this. Of course, Judges very often do this. They express a view in passing which is not relevant to the debate as you, Mr. Speaker, indicated just now. Even Judges sometimes do this. It really does not mean anything at all. In our view, this amendment merely says exactly the same as is there already, it only says it in different language. It takes the matter no further. At any rate, one is delighted that the hon. the Minister is aware and has taken note of what Judges of the Supreme Court say in respect of the drafting of these statutes.

It makes assurance doubly sure.

It makes assurance doubly sure, which, in our view, was in any event sure. It was quite clear when this clause was before us when this Bill was debated.

As far as clause 2 is concerned, it is probably an improvement on the existing situation. I remember—and the hon. the Minister will remember—that a Coloured man in Durban wanted to produce a newspaper which was to provide a sort of social magazine for the Coloured community in Durban. He wanted to bring this magazine out once a month and, in it, indicate to the people who had been married and engaged. There were to be pictures, and social and sporting events were to be featured, purely for that section of the population. As far as I was aware—I think the hon. the Minister did not doubt my representations to him in this regard—the person concerned was a bona fide character and one had no reason to believe that this newspaper would be anything else than a social journal for the Coloured community in Durban. However, if it was to be a newspaper—that is to say, if it was going to be published once a month—the hon. the Minister was required to issue a certificate in which he had to certify that he had no reason to believe “that a prohibition under section 6 will not at any time become necessary in respect of such newspaper”. As the hon. the Minister has said, how could he sign such a certificate? I must say that, when the hon. the Minister pointed this out, I appreciated his point of view. How could he sign such a certificate? What this amounts to is that this was really a brutum fulmen, a hiatus, in our law. This is now being changed. The hon. the Minister will now no longer have to certify anything. That is the first improvement. He must now be satisfied that a prohibition in terms of the Act will not at any time become necessary in respect of such newspaper. Well, I hope that that will make the hon. the Minister’s task easier. Certainly, his task was impossible before. So I wish him the best of good British luck as far as this clause is concerned, because I do not see how he is going to avoid the same difficulties that he had in the past.

Be that as it may, there is one definite improvement in this Bill as opposed to a non-change, namely clause 3 which makes the whole situation concerning exceptions in certain circumstances—such as reporting to the Police—much more flexible. This is to be welcomed, because, obviously, it has been found in practice to be necessary. So we offer no objection at this stage to this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we are again dealing here with a Bill amending the Communism Act. It is a pity the hon. member for Durban North did not simply state at the outset that he agreed. They agree with the Bill but the hon. member states that he does not see the necessity for the amendment. He said the amendment was simply a lot of wordage.

I should like to mention to the hon. member two reasons why I think this amendment is very necessary. The hon. member, as a legal man, ought to know that one would at all times like to have certainty in the law. When two learned Judges, Mr. Justice Rabie and Mr. Justice Trengove, give an opinion obiter dicta in the Ranta case which is contrary to this section, surely one must rectify the section in order to have certainty about it in future. I should like to quote what the hon. Judge said in this connection—

Then he quotes those words—

Then the Judge continues—

That is precisely what is intended with this clause, namely to add those words. In the first place one would therefore like to have legal certainty. Secondly, to sow doubt is only one of the aims of communism. Where a mere opinion has been expressed by a Judge, one could imagine that the communists are going to seize upon that doubt which has arisen in the law to bring about future lawsuits. Here they have already received an indication from the Judge that everything is not as it should be with this section in the principal Act. Surely they will therefore seize upon this section to make things impossible for the Government. For this reason as well it is therefore essential to amend the section. After all, these people are always at liberty to go to the Minister to get the necessary permission to belong to any organization. Why hon. members on the opposite side feel that this amendment is not necessary, is beyond us. We feel that this clause is very necessary and that it is merely a rectification of an existing intention. This is therefore being done in this Bill. The same applies to clause 2 as well. This clause also has to do with the rectification of the existing intention. If section 6bis of the Newspaper and Imprint Registration Act, 1971, is not amended, the section is in fact useless. This amendment Bill is therefore absolutely essential.

Mr. Speaker, it is not my intention to take up a lot of the time of this House. Our position has been made clear by the hon. member for Durban North. The hon. member for Potgietersrus was not in this House when the original section 5ter was introduced in 1962. Had he been in the House, he would have known that this section was debated on the basis that it was intended to make it possible for persons to be prevented from doing the various things provided for in section 5ter, persons who were members of an unlawful organization not only at the time when the organization was declared to be unlawful, but also at any given time before that, for the reasons which have already been mentioned by the hon. the Minister of Justice, namely that it is virtually impossible to say who was and who was not a member at the specific moment when the organization was declared to be unlawful. In other words, we on this side of the House dealt with the original section on that basis. In our view the words “were office bearers, officers or members of the organization” are sufficiently wide to include not only persons who were at a particular time, but who were at any time, members of such an organization. It is for this reason that, in our view, the amendment which has been introduced does not go any further than the section as it stands today. It merely says exactly the same thing in different words. Therefore we do not oppose this amendment.

I would point out as well that the obiter dicta to which the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Potgietersrus referred, was not a considered judgment on the meaning of the words. It was not an issue in the case. It was merely an expression of the opinion of those Judges that the words had a particular meaning. It is quite possible, though, that, had these Judges been required to consider the meaning of these words as a specific issue in the case, they would have come to a contrary decision. So I do not think that one can rely on the obiter dicta as being an expression of the views of these Judges as regards the meaning of these words. For these reasons we do not consider that this amendment extends section 5 ter, and therefore we do not oppose it.

As regards the other amendments which have been introduced in this amending Bill, we regard them as improvements and therefore they have our support.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The provisions of the South-West Africa Affairs Act, 1969, place the registration of deeds in South-West Africa under the administration of the Minister of Justice. Whereas this matter is regulated in the Republic by the Deeds Registries Act, 1937, South-West Africa has its own Deeds Registry Proclamation of 1939. However, the South-West African Proclamation is mainly a re-enactment of the South African Act, with minor adjustments. Over the years relevant amendments to the South African Act have to a large extent been incorporated in the South-West Africa Proclamation.

In order to promote uniformity and sound administration, it is desirable for the South African Act in substitution for the Territory’s Proclamation to be applied in South-West Africa, as is being done in this Bill. In addition, I want to refer you to the Sectional Titles Act, 1971, which is linked with the Deeds Registries Act and which cannot really function independently of it. The Sectional Titles Act applies to South-West Africa as well. This makes the application of the Deeds Registries Act in South-West Africa all the more necessary.

Most of the clauses require no explanation. I shall gladly explain the others. Clause 12 (g) inserts a definition of the expression “the commencement of this Act” in the Deeds Registries Act. In respect of South-West Africa this expression will therefore mean the date of the commencement of this Bill. The definition is aimed at the use of this expression in sections 1 (2), 2 (3) and 3 (1) (a). By its insertion, it is envisaged to cause pending transactions in Windhoek to be brought to finality under the regulations under which they were commenced, to cause the formal appointments of officials in the Deeds Office in Windhoek to remain valid, and to instruct the Registrar in Windhoek to retain in his custody the documents in his custody at the time of the commencement of this Bill.

The second amendment that requires explanation, is the one contained in clause 12 (h). The necessity for clause 12 (h) arises from the fact that the Deeds Registries Act contains references to the Administration of Estates Act, 1913, and the Administration of Estates Act, 1965. The Administration of Estates Act, 1965, has been implemented in part in the Republic, but does not apply in South-West Africa as yet. In the existing South-West African Proclamation, the Deeds Registry Proclamation, 1939, reference is made to the Administration of Estates Act, 1913, as applied to the Territory by the Better Administration of Justice Proclamation, 1921. In order to rectify this confusing state of affairs, this Bill amends the Deeds Registries Act so that reference is made throughout to the Administration of Estates Act, 1965, whilst clause 12 (h) inserts subsection 102 (2) in order to provide that any reference to the Administration of Estates Act, 1965 shall be construed in South-West Africa as a reference to the corresponding laws, which may be in force in the Territory from time to time.

Clause 13 has the effect of the Deeds Registries Act being made applicable to South-West Africa, with the exception of sections 70 to 74bis and sections 84 and 85. Sections 70 to 74bis deal with mineral rights in a piece of land, and sections 84 and 85 with prospecting contracts. In certain cases in South Africa private rights to minerals in a piece of land give rise to prospecting and mining rights. In South-West Africa all prospecting and mining rights are vested in the State, and therefore these sections cannot apply in South-West Africa. The exclusion of these sections has no practical effect. It is merely being done in order to promote neatness.

Clause 16 repeals the relevant laws in South-West Africa, but does so subject to the provisions of subsection (2). In South Africa the Mining Titles Office operates in terms of the Mining Titles Registration Act, 1967. The establishment of the Mining Titles Office in Windhoek was, however, brought about in terms of a South African Proclamation, No. R90 of 1969. This Proclamation did not lay down comprehensive regulations for the operation of the Mining Titles Office, but only identified the South-West Africa Deeds Registry Proclamation, 1939, with minimal adjustments, for this purpose. The Deeds Registry Proclamation, 1939, thus contains the regulations in terms of which the functions of the Mining Titles Office are carried out. That is why it is necessary to keep in existence that Proclamation—which is being substituted in terms of this Bill by the Republic’s Deeds Registries Act. 1937—for the purposes of the Mining Titles Office in Windhoek. This is what is envisaged by subsection (2).

The last clause, clause 17, postpones the commencement of this Bill. This is being done so that sufficient notice of the commencement may be given beforehand in order to enable interested parties to make the necessary preparations.

This Bill, as the hon. the Minister has indicated, is to extend our system of registry, with certain reservations, to South West Africa, and I am sure that there is not one of us, particularly those who are concerned with deeds registry, who will not welcome this measure, because it extends to South-West Africa a system which I think we in South Africa are entitled to believe is one of the best that one can find throughout the world as a system of registration. Sir, I say that because in the past practitioners have had some difficulties and perhaps there have been delays caused by—if I may use this expression, Sir, without damning the Bill— the non-integration of the Windhoek Deeds Registry into the deeds registry system in the Republic I believe practitioners will find that this uniformity will obviate delays in registration. I believe that it will also bring about a modest reduction in the cost of conveyancing transactions between the Territory and the Republic. A particular advantage which I see in this measure is that it prepares for the time when the hon. the Minister’s centralized registry of bonds, etc.—what is commonly known as the Debt Registry in the Deeds Office—is established. This registry will bring the registry of Windhoek into the same orbit as the other registries, and in the Republic one will be able to obtain information from the Windhoek registry. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us how far that computerization of the central Debt Registry has progressed.

Another point which arises from this Bill is the following: One notices the necessary perpetuation of divided responsibility between the hon. the Minister of Justice and the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. The Minister of Justice deals with the procedural aspects of registration while the Minister of Agriculture deals with matters of land tenure, consolidated titles, the consolidation of contiguous properties, and so on. I believe that the hon. the Minister and his department would be doing the country a service if that dual control could be eliminated, so that the whole matter could fall under one authority. After all, registration is so intimately bound up with the question of consolidated title, which is referred to in this Bill, that it would help considerably if they were brought under one ministry.

A further matter I want to refer to is the exclusion of the registration of mineral rights and leases, hypothecation, and various other aspects concerned with mineral rights, and the standardization of the procedures in regard to registrations flowing from mineral rights. The Minister has quite correctly indicated that the vested right in minerals is different in the two territories. I do not want to labour the point at this stage, but I believe that even there uniformity could be established between the two registries in regard to mineral rights. After all, there are mineral and prospecting leases, and a different form of registration can lead to the perpetuation of a degree of conflict, which may cause confusion and uncertainty as to what applies in the Republic and what applies in South-West Africa.

In mentioning these points, I want to repeat that we on this side of the House welcome this legislation. We believe that it will lead to greater efficiency and to a certain extent it will lead to a lowering of costs in so far as transactions between the Republic and South-West Africa are concerned. We support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, in supporting this measure I want to say that we welcome the fact that the Bill is also supported by the members on the other side of the House. All of us who, as practitioners, are concerned with the registration of deeds and with the deeds offices, welcome the gratifying aspect that attention is being given to legislation with regard to registration offices, especially in recent times. In terms of this legislation the position will be improved and it will be made so streamlined—if one can use the word “streamlined” in connection with registration offices—that it holds many advantages for practitioners when it comes to the drawing up of deeds. As the hon. member for Green Point also indicated, it will to a large extent be possible to reduce the costs pertaining to the registration of deeds. This is necessary because we can in this country most certainly expect an increase in the registrations and preparation of deeds in all deeds offices in the near future, especially in view of the Sectional Titles Act which the hon. the Minister also mentioned here, and it is therefore essential that it be done in this way. In the same breath we also want to express our thanks to the hon. the Minister for the classification which has already been made, by means of which the work is at present proceeding almost normally in the deeds offices.

The application of this Act to South-West Africa is a welcome thought in view of the uniformity which it creates in respect of liaison in regard to bonds, as the hon. member for Green Point also indicated, as is the application in regard to provisions in connection with marriages in community of property and the registration of deeds in the name of women, especially now that we are working on the basis of a uniform metric system. It is very clear why the provisions mentioned in Clause 13 are excluded. These are provisions pertaining to mining titles only, they are excluded because all rights in respect of minerals are vested in the Administration. I support the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This Bill contains a number of unrelated amendments to the Insolvency Act, 1936.

Section 70 of the Act requires a trustee to open an account in the name of the insolvent estate with a bank. The type of bank is not defined. At present, however, all banking institutions must fulfil the same requirements, and therefore it is only right that they should receive equal treatment in Acts such as the Insolvency Act. The provisions of clauses 1 and 4, taken together, amend section 70 so that the required estate account may be opened at any banking institution. Provisionally registered banking institutions have, however, not yet rendered proof of their viability, and as far as the investment of trust money is concerned here, they are excluded. But in order to protect existing rights, trustees are allowed, as they may at present, to open such accounts with banking institutions which were registered provisionally before the coming into operation of the Bill.

At present executors in deceased estates are authorized by the Administration of Estates Act, 1965, to invest money which is not needed immediately, in order to earn interest for the estate. The time is ripe for this principle to be extended to insolvent estates. Clauses 1 and 4, taken together, amend the Act so that trustees of insolvent estates are authorized, with the consent of the Master, to open a savings account in the name of the insolvent estate with a banking institution or a building society or, with the written consent of the Master, to place moneys on interest-bearing deposit with a banking institution or building society.

Section 70 (2) provides that a trustee shall, within fourteen days after his appointment, give to the Master notice in writing of the bank with which he has opened an account for the estate. A work-study investigation has revealed that this notice is simply filed away in Masters’ offices and therefore serves no useful purpose. Clause 4 amends the section in such a way that a trustee is obliged to furnish the information only when the Master requires it from him.

Section 42 of the Act requires that a special meeting of creditors shall be convened in the manner prescribed in section 40. However, section 40 was amended in 1965 and at present provides for more than one method by means of which meetings shall be convened. Probably as a result of an oversight, section 42 was not adjusted to this amendment at the time. Clause 3 now amends section 42 so that the section itself contains its own provision in regard to the way in which a special meeting is to be convened. It must in fact be done by notice in the Gazette.

A number of unrelated Acts contain provisions in terms of which preference is given to certain claims in the division of the free residue of the assets in an insolvent estate. It is mainly levies, contributions or duties in terms of the respective Acts that are concerned here. Almost all the provisions are similar, so that problems arise when it has to be determined which claim mentioned in one Act should in fact enjoy preference over that mentioned in another Act. The result is that preference has to be established on the basis of the dates on which the Acts were passed. Such a state of affairs is unsatisfactory. In addition, it is desirable that all provisions of this nature should be combined in one Act, namely the Insolvency Act, so that they are available as an entity to interested parties. Section 99 of the Insolvency Act already contains a provision of this nature, in which preference is given to, inter alia, contributions and compensations in terms of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. By means of clause 5 we are therefore removing all these provisions from the various Acts and combining them all in section 99 of the Insolvency Act. At the same time we are providing that all these claims shall rank pare passu and abate in equal proportion, if necessary.

I proceed to clause 5. Approximately 75 per cent of the persons whose estates are sequestrated never apply for rehabilitation. Various periods which must elapse before application may be made for rehabilitation are stipulated in the Act. They vary from six months after sequestration to five years after conviction of an offence in connection with insolvency. Where application for rehabilitation is in fact made, it sometimes happens that the court refuses the application for some or other reason, but in such cases it is normally put to the applicant that he may re-apply after a further specified period, usually one or two years. When such a period is stipulated, the insolvent is almost invariably rehabilitated. Those who do apply for rehabilitation, can therefore on the one hand be rehabilitated within months, and on the other hand, where they have been convicted of offences in connection with insolvency, within approximately six or seven years.

The 75 per cent odd who do not apply for rehabilitation are probably precluded from doing so either because financially they are not capable of bearing the cost of the application, or because they do not deem it necessary in their own interests, or because they are ignorant or simply not interested. The result is that a large group of unrehabilitated insolvents are absorbed into society and perform juridical acts daily which, because of the change of status resulting from insolvency, they are not legally entitled to perform. After a few years, neither their trustees nor their creditors take any interest in their actions. As I have said, even a person who has been guilty of offences in connection with insolvency is rehabilitated by the court within about seven years, the last-mentioned cases will include even the extreme cases of dishonesty in connection with insolvency. It is therefore not the intention that a person whose estate has been sequestrated should be left with a lowered status for ever. Surely the purpose of sequestration is to make the best of a bad case by combining all the insolvent’s assets and then dividing them among his creditors. The spirit of the Insolvency Act is that this task should be completed within six months. It is the insolvent’s estate that is sequestrated, and not the insolvent himself. Admittedly, he does undergo a change of status in regard to his contractual capacity, but it is aimed more particularly at not complicating the administration task of the trustee on the one hand, and at protecting the public on the other. Once everything is over, however, the court restores to him his status of having full contractual capacity. This can be done much sooner, but because one prefers to be on the conservative side in such matters, I shall say that I see no reason why such a person should not automatically regain this status when 10 years have elapsed after the sequestration of his estate; on the contrary, the state of affairs I have just outlined is a good reason why this should in fact be the case. Some people who have been consulted in this regard, raised the objection that automatic rehabilitation would afford rogues the opportunity of repeatedly going solvent in a fraudulent way. I do not share that objection. In the first place, one’s adult life is too short for one to go insolvent advantageously in cycles of say, 20 years—I say 20 years because there has to be a period of business activity between each insolvency. In order to fit two such insolvencies into a lifetime, one would have to start fairly early. In addition, the rogue is not going to sit waiting for 10 years to be rehabilitated. If he is anxious to start all over again with a new dishonest scheme, he is going to apply to the court for rehabilitation as soon as possible and, to judge from reported cases, he will even be rehabilitated in considerably less than 10 years if he has been found guilty of an offence in connection with insolvency. There is a secondary advantage of automatic rehabilitation that I want to mention, although in itself it is not related to to the principle. Section 155 (2) of the Insolvency Act authorizes the Master to destroy all records relating to the estate of an insolvent after five years have elapsed as from the rehabilitation of that insolvent. When no rehabilitation takes place, Masters must keep the documents ad infinitum. This is the case with the more or less 75 per cent of insolvencies where no applications for rehabilitation are ever submitted. After a few years, these documents become completely worthless. Nobody, not even the Director of the Archives, is interested in them. Several thousand linear metres of shelving space in Masters’ offices are occupied by such records. This accommodation must necessarily cost the State a considerable amount every year. Automatic rehabilitation will also relieve this problem considerably.

Unfortunately I cannot say whether this idea has already been implemented in other countries. However, I have perused the Scottish Law Commission’s memorandum of 27th November, 1971, about “Insolvency, Bankruptcy and Liquidation in Scotland”. In this document a work-study group of the commission considered, inter alia, recommendations in regard to automatic rehabilitation and then proposed (I quote from that report)—

1. (1) Every bankrupt who shall not already have obtained his discharge shall be automatically discharged three years after the date when the examination of the bankrupt has been concluded, provided that no bankrupt shall be discharged from a later bankruptcy while he is undischarged from an earlier bankruptcy.
2. (2) At any time within the foregoing period of three years the trustee may lodge in court a caveat against the bankrupt’s discharge and the automatic discharge shall not apply when a caveat has been lodged.

This brings me to the one aspect about which I initially had doubts and in regard to which I request hon. members’ special attention. Various proposals have in fact been made which amount to the inclusion of a safety valve so that automatic rehabilitation may be prevented in some or other way if special circumstances justify it. I personally had in mind the case of an insolvent who may possibly become entitled to an inheritance after the 10 years have elapsed. However, I know of no case where something like this has actually happened or could have happened. Surely a period of 10 years affords creditors sufficient opportunity to claim their pound of flesh. Furthermore, the idea of sequestration is in fact the termination of a hopeless situation by, inter alia, the extinction of debts. The inclusion of such a safety valve would greatly prejudice the whole idea which is aimed at a moment of finality and certainty. And where something like this would, as far as I can see, only have theoretical value, I have decided that it is unnecessary and undesirable.

I now want to refer to clause 7. Section 134 of the Act deals with the manner in which an insolvent should have kept a record of his transactions before the sequestration of his estate. Doubt arose as to whether the methods of bookkeeping required included modern methods—for example, making use of calculating machines. It is hoped that the amendment being effected by clause 7 will remove this uncertainty.

The only aspect of clause 8 which requires explanation is the repeal of section 5 (2) of Act No. 24 of 1922. This section deals with the reciprocal validity between the Republic and South-West Africa of court orders in insolvency cases and has become redundant as a result of the application of the Insolvency Act to South-West Africa.

Mr. Speaker, we are grateful to the hon. the Minister for the explanation of the provisions of this Bill. At this stage we support the Bill. May I just say that the hon. the Minister has said everything that can be said about the provisions of this Bill, except about the provisions of one clause, namely clause 6.

†Clause 6 deals with the automatic rehabilitation of an insolvent after ten years. It seems to us that there may well be circumstances where a person is the sort of person who ought not to have full freedom especially in respect of public finances or finances in which the public has an interest. Ten years is a short time in the life of such a person. We have recently seen the tragic happenings with a company like Sidarel. One does not yet know by what it was caused, but it was certainly caused by the individual manipulations of moneys within companies upon companies within companies. It does seem to us that there may well be circumstances where there are people whose actions ten years after their insolvency ought to be contained. We should like to see some provisions in terms of which a man who has, for example, committed an offence under the Insolvency Act in respect of his insolvency, must after ten years, apply to the court for his rehabilitation. This would then give the court the discretion to look into all the circumstances which then obtain. In the normal course of events I think we agree with everything the hon. the Minister has said in respect of the desirability of automatic rehabilitation. There may well be people with a predilection for this sort of activity. It seems to us that if we could formulate the circumstances in which the court should examine the matter, it would be in the public interest. In other words, such persons as one might be able to describe, should then come before the court which, in its discretion, could grant the rehabilitation.

Has the hon. member got a positive suggestion to make?

The positive suggestion, subject to any discussion, which I would like to mention now so that we may think about it before the Committee Stage, is that if a person committed an offence in terms of the Insolvency Act concerned with or relating to his insolvency, or if he committed an offence during the course of his insolvency, he should not be automatically rehabilitated. Such a person should only be rehabilitated on application to the Supreme Court, which would consider all the circumstances and decide accordingly.

What would you suggest if the trustee cannot be traced?

In those circumstances, the Master is usually the person who would have to make a report on the activities of the insolvent. Certainly in the case of the sort of person we are concerned with, it should, I should think, not be without public notice. Here we are not dealing with the sort of person who just goes insolvent and does not bother to be rehabilitated. We are dealing here with the sort of person who ought not to be allowed to deal with public money or engage upon operations which might involve the public in the sort of loss and unhappiness which the Sidarel case has shown us. I say that because in terms of section 127, subsection (2), of the Insolvency Act, a discretion now resides with the court— even under the statutory applications for rehabilitation—to lay down conditions upon which the rehabilitation shall take place. In the case of certain people one can envisage in this regard, the court may well lay down as a condition that the person concerned shall not indulge in any company activities, float any companies, or take a position such as director of a company. I mention that merely as an example.

With those few thoughts on the only clause in the Bill on which we would have any discussion in the Committee Stage, we support the Bill at this stage.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to reply briefly to what the hon. member for Durban North has said. Obviously it is possible that theoretical circumstances may exist where the desirability of such a person having to be rehabilitated automatically, may be doubted. In my opinion the point of departure should be in the first place, that insolvency is not so much only to the detriment of the insolvent himself in respect of his contractual capacity. It is much more an action which is taken for the protection of creditors or, in other words, of third parties. So, the fact that a particular person’s estate has been sequestrated and that he himself is insolvent, has detrimental effects not only on him, but also to a much larger extent on the people with whom, under normal circumstances, he deals every day in the company as well as in the business world. It is a fact, as the hon. the Minister pointed out, that there is a large percentage of people who are not really interested in being rehabilitated in terms of the existing provisions of the Act. All these people—the 75 per cent to whom reference was made—are people who stand in some legal relationship to other parties virtually every day and who negotiate transactions which are not really valid in law.

In the interests of and for the protection of those people, including the business world, with whom the insolvent deals from time to time, I think it is important for finality to be reached at some stage or other in respect of his status, not only for his own protection, but for the protection of the other people with whom he negotiates business transactions, because they are not always aware of the fact that they are entering into business transactions with a person who does not have contractual capacity. For that reason they are in the position of not being able to enforce the consequences. Although there are circumstances, such as those to which the hon. member referred, it is clear to me that the preponderance of present evidence is in favour of the automatic rehabilitation of an insolvent after a specified period. The hon. member referred to the case where an insolvent would commit an offence in respect of his insolvency in terms of the provisions of the Insolvency Act as well. It is important to note that where such offences have been committed, there are punitive provisions in respect of those particular offences. I do not think an additional penalty should be imposed after the legal process has taken its normal course and after a person has been punished for the offences with which he was charged.

I come now to clause 2, which, in my opinion, contains an extremely important principle, and that is that when a person’s estate has been sequestrated and a trustee has been appointed, the assets shall vest in the trustee or curator. It is a generally recognized legal principle that persons who have been entrusted with the assets of other people, in this case in order to realize the assets to satisfy the claims of creditors, should have imposed on them a larger degree of circumspection and caution, because they are in a position of trust. For that reason I consider it a good idea that people should not speculatively invest the funds of such an insolvent estate in companies or in banks which have not yet proved their viability. In my opinion the amendment in clause 2 removes the possibility of insolvent estate funds being invested in speculative undertakings. Further to this, I consider the next provision to be of equal importance, and that is that the trustee will now be entitled to invest the funds standing to the credit of the estate in a banking institution or building society.

This provision conforms with the provision which already exists in respect of the Estates Act which deals with deceased estates. I think it is extremely important that the creditors should be entitled to the earning capacity of any assets which can be invested. This particular clause once again gives the trustee or curator, in discharging this particular onus resting on him, the opportunity of working to the advantage of the people on whose behalf he is acting, and of gaining additional income by means of the investment of the assets of the estate. In this regard it is relevant that one should be aware of the fact that a considerable period sometimes expires before a trustee is able to distribute any of the funds available to him, in any case not before his first account has been approved. Because it often takes a considerable period in practice before this is possible, I consider this provision which enables the trustee to invest the funds to the advantage of the estate, to be extremely important.

Lastly I want to make a few remarks in regard to clause 5. Trustees often have to refer to various pieces of legislation in order to determine which claims have preference and in terms of which statutory provision this must be done. The insertion of the preference in regard to certain statutory obligations in the Insolvency Act, has the twofold advantage that this is laid down in the Act itself and that it is therefore not necessary to refer to other legislation in order to determine whether an incidental preferential provision is contained in such legislation. In the second place, it also makes it possible for an adjustment in the determination of order of preference to be laid down in terms of a mere amendment to the particular Act. For these reasons it is with pleasure that I support the legislation before this House.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to support the hon. member for Durban North in what he has said, especially in regard to clause 6. We on this side of the House feel that we cannot support automatic rehabilitation, even after a period of ten years. We can see no difficulty in cases where no offence has been committed. In those cases we are quite prepared to support the Minister. In fact, we think there is much to be said in favour of the principle of automatic rehabilitation, for the reasons given by the hon. the Minister, namely that in so many cases people do not bother to apply for rehabilitation. It is a good thing that after a certain period there should be certainty one way or the other.

But in the case of those who have committed offences, we do not think that there should be automatic rehabilitation. It is true that some offences may be quite minor and would not justify keeping the person insolvent. But these are matters which the court would be able to deal with on application. We would point out, though, that with the complicated methods that are being adopted nowadays in commerce, intercompany dealings, and so forth, such as the case which is before the public at the moment and which has already been mentioned by the hon. member for Durban North, namely the Sidarel case, there may well be reasons why a person who has been declared insolvent in circumstances of this sort, should not automatically be rehabilitated, even after a period of ten years.

I do not wish to delay the House at this stage by debating this question in detail. We will have the opportunity of doing so at the Committee Stage; but I believe the matter is of sufficient importance for me to raise at this stage and to tell the Minister that we are not happy with this proposal. We intend to propose an amendment that, where there have been offences, the matter should be left to the discretion of the court. We would ask the hon. the Minister to give serious consideration to our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, the objections raised by hon. members opposite are not without weight. As I, too, tried to indicate in my Second Reading speech, this was a matter which had bothered me. However, it is extremely difficult to overcome this problem. Actually, it seems to me that, as far as the Opposition is concerned, it amounts to the fact that they will be satisfied on condition that alternative action is to be taken in respect of people who have committed offences in terms of the Insolvency Act, and apparently particularly in respect of people who have fiddled with companies and have committed offences in that way. I should be pleased if they could come forward with a suitable amendment. I just want to point out, however, that we should remember that even in the worst cases of offences under the Insolvency Act, the existing Act provides for the insolvent to apply for rehabilitation after five years. This does not mean that it will be granted at that stage, but experience has also taught us that if an offender of the worst order applies after five years and the court rejects his application, the court usually indicates a period when he may apply again. As far as we know, that period is hardly or ever more than two years. When he applies at that time rehabilitation follows virtually automatically. This is the procedure in respect of the person who wants to do something like this.

I attach considerable value to the proposal of the hon. member for Durban North, namely that when people do strange things with public money or with company money, and a company is liquidated, such people cannot be rehabilitated again. Such a person is found guilty in terms of the Insolvency Act and even his estate may be sequestrated as well. One may think of the possibility of excluding such persons from automatic rehabilitation. This is one possibility to which consideration may be given. As I have said, we shall pay attention to it before the Committee Stage. I should appreciate a suitable proposal from Opposition side.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The demand for Bantu labour, the provision of Bantu labour, the training and the improvement of the quality of Bantu labour have become today one of the most topical issues facing everybody concerned in the matter. From all quarters people are looking to my department for the provision of sufficient labour but also good labour. The housewife seeks a neat and reliable domestic servant; the one industrialist seeks a strong and willing labourer, and the other seeks an energetic and intelligent one. Everybody wants to have excellent Bantu labour, but few are concerned about the implications of their demands. Employees can only do their best if they are happy, and to a large extent the happiness of Bantu employees can be assured if those bodies which, on behalf of my department, have to ensure this happiness to Bantu labourers, have at their disposal sufficient funds that will enable them to do so. And yet one finds the unfortunate phenomenon that the moment this facet of Bantu labour is raised, emotions become inflamed and even find expression in strong language. To those people one feels inclined to say, in the words of Bertrand Russell—

In regard to this topic, this is really the case. For instance, the gross misrepresentation was made that this Bill before the House at the moment, allegedly provided that all Bantu in White areas would be “taxed” from now on. If hon. members would read carefully clause 2 (1) (b) of the Bill and the White Paper that was placed at their disposal, as well as the definitions of “employer” and “employee”, they would see at once that this is not the case at all. For years there has been a definition in section 22 of Chapter VIII of Government Notice R.1892 of 1965 of “casual labourer” or a person who works for his own account. There are very few casual Bantu labourers of this type in respect of whom R1 can be collected in terms of this Bill and who are therefore affected by this Bill. No Bantu person, except a casual Bantu labourer, need therefore make any payment in terms of this Bill, and I hope there will be no misunderstanding in this regard.

My department, local authorities throughout the country and I myself, who have to bear the brunt as regards the provision of Bantu labour, often find ourselves in the situation that the public does not realize what expenditure Bantu administration involves, and that costs, in respect of the provision of this basic service as well, are showing an upward trend. For that reason I should like to give the House an idea of those matters which involve expenditure within the framework of the administration of Bantu employees in White areas.

†Whilst I concede, Mr. Speaker, that the scope of the Bantu Services Levy Act, 1952, is confined to the provision of certain defined services, and whilst my department and myself have taken into account the fact that some local authorities have built up balances, and in some instances quite substantial balances, in their Bantu Services Levy Account, it is our firm conviction that we cannot conceive of a situation ever being reached where services in respect of Bantu employees would become superfluous or altogether obsolete. It is therefore logical that the Bill will fall short of its requirements if employers were to be exempt from contributing towards such essential necessities. Indeed, we cannot waive the need for providing for essential services such as a good water supply, sanitation services, electricity supply, roads— including bus roads and termini—clinics and health services, recreational facilities, crèches, community centres, libraries and, what is more, the maintenance of these services. After all, we are a civilized country, and we are duty bound to look after the interests of these labourers in our midst. Within the framework of Bantu administration, as developed over the years, these costs have become known as “administration costs”, and you will note that administration thus includes everything that is necessary to ensure that the Bantu employee, whilst he sojourns in the White area, is a happy and contented person— that he is not merely treated as a commodity but as a human being with human needs. Employers are richly rewarded by the fruit of this policy.

In addition to the essential services already mentioned, costs in respect of the provision of adequate office accommodation, the running of an efficient labour bureau, the provision of effective aid centres to assist workers and work seekers generally, and the subsidization of rentals in deserving cases, should not be overlooked. Furthermore, sight should not be lost of needs of employees resident in the homelands, but working in the industrial areas of White South Africa. At present more than 300 000 Bantu employees travel daily on a subsidized basis between their homes in the homelands and their places of employment in the White areas, and this number is increasing. For that reason it would be competent for a board to canalize some of its surplus funds voluntarily to an appropriate homeland. In addition my Department is busy with vocational orientation projects within homelands from which industry will greatly benefit especially on a long-term basis. These projects are being carried out in close collaboration with the CSIR and the National Occupational Safety Association with a view to promoting the following:

1. (i) A more efficient Bantu labour supply organization;
2. (ii) facilities for medical examinations;
3. (iii) aptitude tests of a general nature;
4. (iv) safety measures in factories;
5. (v) cleanliness in working conditions; and
6. (vi) vocational orientation.

There should be no illusion regarding the costs entailed in the peculiar administration under discussion. To illustrate what is involved the position of one big city can be taken as a case in point. This city requires a total personnel of just over 4 000 units apart from agency services rendered by other departments of the local authority, such as the town treasurer, the engineering department, etc., while rentals in respect of Bantu housing are estimated for 1971-’72 to be subsidized to the extent of R4 million. Now it must be remembered that when rentals are subsidized from a local authority’s general account, it means in effect an indirect taxation of all persons within the area of jurisdiction of such a local authority, whether they employ Bantu or not. It is however not the intention to burden employers with an elaborate urban Bantu administration, but any such administration must have adequate funds to be efficiently run and particularly in such a manner that essential services are not skimped. Bearing this in mind you will appreciate, Sir, that neither my Department nor its agent, namely a local authority or a Bantu administration board, when it is instituted, can at this stage predict exactly what amount per Bantu employee would be required in any particular area or for an efficient administration as a whole, or simply to ensure an adequate service, especially as regards really efficient labour bureaux and aid centres. It would therefore be unrealistic to commit oneself to any per capita figures, but my Department and I consider a maximum of R2,50 per month sufficient for a period of, we hope, at least five to ten years. It could also be longer. It is for this reason that the Bill purports to be an enabling measure, leaving ample scope for the determining of fees, on a differential basis from time to time.

*It is not expected that any need will arise in the near future for the maximum amount of R2,50 to be levied in any area.

The Bill deals chiefly with the following: (a) the consolidation of three types of fees or levies, namely the labour bureau fee, the registration fee and the levy payable in respect of Bantu services; (b) the principle of differentiation, i.e. between employers, between areas or also between categories of employers; and (c) the utilization of the contributions.

In respect of (a), the consolidation of these three types of fees, I must point out a very important provision contained in clause 5 of the Bill, namely that although the present Bantu Services Levy Act, 1952 (Act No. 64 of 1952), is not being repealed now, any person who in terms of this Bill pays a contribution, is ipso jure no longer liable for Bantu services levies, nor for any other fees. However, it is not possible for the relevant Act, as well as the other provisions, to be withdrawn now just like that, for this legislation will not necessarily be applied everywhere; it will gradually become applicable, only subsequent to a proper investigation having been carried out and my having been advised in this regard by the local authorities. The present moneys in the Bantu Services Levy Fund will remain there and will be utilized or spent just as was done in the past, and in accordance with the procedures and principles that were applicable in the past. As has already been said, without prior investigation it is impossible to say what the fee in respect of any category of employer in any area will amount to, but it is my wish that no unnecessary surpluses should accumulate from these contributions. By those means an important assurance is given to the White employers who have to make this contribution.

†As regards (b), i.e. the principle of differentiation, the position has been briefly but clearly set out in the White Paper. The Bill provides that when a Government notice is issued which prescribes the payment of contributions, it may be applicable to employers only or to casual labourers only, or to both employers and casual labourers. It may further be applicable to all employers, or to employers belonging to a category of employers only. For example, it may be applicable only to the State, to commerce and to industry, or it may be worded in such a way that it will be applicable to all employers, except the employers of certain categories of employees, for example Bantu domestic servants, blind Bantu, or crippled Bantu. The notice may furthermore be worded that it shall apply to all casual labourers or casual labourers who are, for example, painters only—not washerwomen, let us say—or to all casual labourers, except painters or washerwomen, whatever the case may be. The notice may even be worded to read that contributions shall be paid in respect of all Bantu employees or only in respect of employees of certain categories, for example, those who are employed in the Post Office or as bus drivers, or it may be phrased to read that contributions shall be paid in respect of all Bantu employees except employees engaged in Postal Services or as bus drivers. You will therefore observe, Mr. Speaker, that every possible combination has been covered by the terms of this legislation. Futhermore, different rates or contributions may be determined for different employers, casual labourers or categories of employees as well as for different areas or different parts of a given area. We can discuss that later on.

Will the hon. the Deputy Minister care to explain that to the House now?

We can discuss that when we come to those terms of the Bill. I am busy now stating the general principles during the Second Reading.

Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not know the details?

I know the details very well.

But he knows the rules of the House, too.

I know the rules of the House as my hon. friend here suggests.

But the rules of the House do not preclude the hon. the Deputy Minister from explaining.

But I have already said that I would explain it, but if I should go into details now, then hon. members will cause me to deviate from the general principles which I should state in the Second Reading debate.

Why can you not explain it now?

It is possible to fix different rates for Putsonderwater and Cape Town, or different rates for the harbour area of Cape Town, the business area of Cape Town and the residential areas of Cape Town. These provisions are necessary to arrive at an equitable per capita figure, or exemption having regard to all the circumstances and after due consultation with local authorities so as to avoid undue heavy contributions on any person, especially on those who can ill afford them.

That will worry the hon. the Deputy Minister; will it not?

It will worry me, yes. In that regard I think I have already furnished the House with ample evidence.

After all, it does not require any imagination to appreciate that from the nature of the case there must be differences in the contributions of, for instance, a Karoo town and those of a metropolitan city, such as Cape Town or Johannesburg, or between the employers of domestic servants, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, those of semi-skilled Bantu labourers employed in an industry. There will also be differences between, on the one hand, washerwomen who earn only R30 to R40 per month and, on the other hand, Bantu painters who are casual labourers and earn R400 or even more per month, or between employers providing their employees with housing, with all the expenses that involves, and employers who do not provide their Bantu employees with housing. In any case, the principle of differentiation is no new principle, and is embodied in the existing legislation making provision for certain exemptions. However, in drafting notices, one will have to have regard to keeping the system as simple as possible.

In respect of (c)—i.e. the utilization of the funds—I wish to draw attention to clauses 4 and 9 in particular. I want to make the point at once that in respect of an important point clause 4 (2), as printed in the Bill before the House at the moment, differs substantially from clause 4 (2) as published for general information in the Gazette on 24th December, 1971. As you are aware, every local authority has to keep a Bantu revenue account in terms of section 19 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, Act No. 25 of 1945. All revenue relating to Bantu administration is paid into that account, and the expenditure is paid out of that account. The Act also makes provision for the manner in which expenditure is to be utilized, and provides, inter alia, that expenditure may only be incurred subsequent to a estimate having been submitted and approved by the Minister. A special section of my department checks these estimates, and control over funds is strict. Up to now it has not been possible for the Minister to direct a local authority to pay out moneys. Experience has shown that clashes sometimes arise in cases where one local authority undertakes to render services for another—and this is an important point—and, owing to circumstances beyond its control, finds that it has to do it at a loss, whilst the other local authority tries to adhere strictly to the terms, which are in its favour. The present clause 4 (2), as printed, now authorises the Minister to direct the other local authority to pay over an equitable amount to the one rendering the services, and the latter, in turn, has to pay that money into its Bantu revenue account. In other words, this means that clause 4 (2), as it now appears in print before the House, differs in a very important respect from the one published for public information on 24th December, 1971. The difference is that an addition has now been made for a case where services are rendered by one local authority to another local authority. It is therefore not a general principle that the Minister may determine the utilization in respect of the surpluses of a local authority in any case. As clause 4 (2) reads now, he may only do so in a case where one local authority has rendered services to another. I should like to bring this important point to the notice of the House during the Second Reading.

Furthermore, I wish to draw the attention of hon. members to amounts of money paid in with a Bantu affairs commissioner. These amounts will be so small that they will actually be more of a burden than a real financial asset. With the introduction of the Bantu affairs administration boards, these moneys will disappear completely, for they will then be paid over to these boards. In the main, these moneys, if any, will have their origin in rural reas, such as fees in respect of rail workers and road workers in a rural area. These are just about the only categories there are. This money will, of course, be utilized in the interests of the Bantu. Local authorities have a great deal of autonomy in the utilization of their fees, and over the years donations have been made from the Bantu Revenue Account, particularly to welfare organizations or bodies and even to the Department of Bantu Administration and Development for utilization in the interests of the Bantu generally. Therefore, voluntary donations are involved here. This has been the practice for decades, but in recent times a certain attitude has become more and more evident an attitude in terms of which this practice is considered to be wrong because such moneys should only— and I quote—“… be utilized in the area where they have been collected”. Clause 9 of this Bill, which amends section 19 of the Urban Areas Act, now puts this position beyond all doubt, namely that in a case where a local authority wishes to make a donation from its surplus funds, it shall be statutorily capable of doing so and no more. Therefore, if a local authority deems it fit, and if the Minister approves, its funds may be utilized elsewhere in the interests of the Bantu.

†I believe that these explanations adequately elucidate the principles and the provisions contained in the Bill. It is most unfortunate that so much has been read into this Bill, viz., that it is the intention of the Bill to divert economic activities from developed areas to the homelands, for example, and that it is the intention of the Bill to take off more than R100 million in African taxation, etc. I wish to deny these allegations categorically. I and my department do not wish to accumulate unnecessary funds which serve no purpose. I think hon. members will all agree with that. We shall be happy if local authorities could financially be placed in the position where they can render a proper service to the public and to the Bantu employed in their areas in the form of an efficient Bantu administration; not only in the few isolated areas, but throughout the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Deputy Minister has given us a full description of the Bill and what he intends accomplishing with it. It was very interesting to hear him talk about the urban Bantu, the intentions of the Government in respect of the urban Bantu, and what they should do to make him “gelukkig”, to make him happy. The hon. the Deputy Minister said that the urban Bantu must be contented, that he is a human being and that his human needs must be respected. The hon. the Minister mentioned all the facilities which must be given to the urban Bantu to make him happy and contented. Not so long ago we had another hon. Deputy Minister telling us that life must not be made too luxurious for the Bantu in the urban areas. He, in fact, objected to money being spent on those amenities which this hon. Deputy Minister now wants to give the urban Bantu.

What do you say now, Blaar?

It is absolute nonsense.

When the then Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration, Mr. Coetzee, made those comments, he was quite right in proposing that because the object of the Government then was to make the urban areas less attractive so that the Bantu would go to the homelands. He was carrying out Government policy; he was being honest. But now there has been such a change in Government policy that nobody knows what the real object of the Government is; whether it is to attract Africans to the urban areas or to attract them to the homelands. Last week we had a statement from the hon. the Deputy Minister that the policy now was to allow the fairly permanent Bantu—I do not know what he means by that—to bring their wives in from the Reserves to live in the townships where housing is available.

The casual permanent Bantu.

“Casual permanent” or “permanently casual”; we could not make out which it was. Of course, we are in agreement with the hon. the Deputy Minister that the human needs of the urban African should be catered for. Our complaint against this Government has been that it has not catered for the human needs of the urban Bantu in the past. In fact, they have denied them the human needs. They have not regarded them as human beings with all the ordinary needs of human beings. That is why we have pleaded with them to allow them to have their wives in the urban areas where they can enjoy ordinary family life. It seems to me that this is what the Government has now set out to do. We are pleased to see this change of heart. There has been some suggestion that the Government is going to take R100 million in Bantu taxation through this Bill. However, the hon. the Deputy Minister says that this is nonsense. I wonder whether he can give us some idea of what they do expect to take by way of this proposed taxation. We are completely in the dark as to how much is expected to be recouped in terms of this Bill because there are so many differentiations and discriminations. We do not know actually to whom this Bill is going to apply and to whom not. The Minister alone will decide. I will return to this point at a later stage.

In stressing that the life of the urban African must be made a happier one, the hon. the Deputy Minister mentioned something about vocational training. I am not quite certain about this point. Will this vocational training be given in the urban areas?

You know our policy.

I cannot see why the hon. the Deputy Minister should have mentioned the question of vocational training of the urban African if it is not to be applied in the urban areas. Otherwise, why mention it now? The hon. the Deputy Minister will not reply. Will it be in the urban areas?

Who will benefit from that?

The urban African himself will benefit from it and the European employer will benefit from it.

Of course they will.

Of course, yes. But will it be given in the urban areas?

I will reply to that.

Why can’t you reply now?

You know our policy.

I do not know your policy; nobody knows your policy; it changes from day to day. Your policy up to now has been that they will not get vocational training in the urban areas, but that they must go back to the homelands for it. That has been the policy in the past. Is that still the policy? Let me ask that of the hon. member for Langlaagte, the chairman of the Native Affairs Commission. The hon. member apparently cannot hear me. He is writing very assiduously now.

I do hear you but I do not feel like listening to you.

Now he can hear me. Is it the policy now to give vocational training to the Bantu in the urban areas?

You will get your answer.

I shall get the answer. They all say I shall get it, but when shall I get the answer? Anyway, we will get no further information on that question.

The hon. the Minister referred to the taxation to be applied to the casual Bantu who makes his own living. As far as the term “casual” is concerned, the hon. the Minister is quite right—there is a lot of confusion about the word “casual”. Most people of course take a casual labourer to be one who is employed today; he works in your garden and has worked for somebody else, but he is your casual labourer. That is not what is meant by “casual” labourer, but it refers to the self-employed labourer. Of course, in normal circumstances that man who makes as much money as the hon. the Minister told us—I think he said that some of them make as much as R400 per month—would not have to pay tax in this way, because he would be supplying his own house if he were allowed to. Obviously he must be living permanently in the area concerned, otherwise he would not be allowed there. A man of that nature should be in the position where he can buy his own land and have his own house. In that way he would relieve the local authority and the State from providing houses. That is another criticism we have of the Government’s policy in regard to the urban African. As their policy now stands, the local authority and the State are responsible for building and supplying all the houses required, whereas the Bantu themselves could build a lot of houses if they were allowed to do so.

There is an impression amongst some people that this Bill is really a consolidating measure, because once this tax is applied employers will be relieved from the liability of contributing to the Bantu Services Levy Fund 20 cents per week; the monthly registration fee of 20 cents and the initial registration fee of 25 cents under the Levy Act. The 25 cents is not a recurring contribution. It is, of course, not a consolidating measure. If it were only a consolidating measure, we could give our approval provided certain assurances were given us with regard to the services levy. This is not a consolidating measure because, firstly, it will apply to all employers of Bantu labour. That is something new. It will apply to the Government, to the householder and to the farmer. The hon. the Minister can, of course, allow exemptions. I am sorry that he did not give us an indication whether it is the policy to apply it to all Government employees. We would like to know, because that would be something new. Also, provision is made for the Minister to differentiate between categories of employers, employees and areas. Thirdly, the hon. the Minister can raise the amount payable up to a maximum of R2,50 per month. At present the levies or taxes which will be effected amount to approximately R1,05, with the initial registration fee of 25 cents. Also, the object of the contribution by the employer is altered.

With regard to the contributions, the result should be a big increase in the contributions, i.e. that the total amount contributed should increase …

Why?

The Government, the farmers and the householders are now going to pay, are they not?

I will reply to that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister asked me a question.

No, you asked me a question.

The hon. the Deputy Minister said that every employer in the country is going to be affected by this Bill and that, at the moment, every employer is not affected by this Bill. Another thing, in the past, under the services levy, the employer paid according to the number of days the employee worked. Now he is going to pay for a whole month, even though the employee only works for one day in a month. The hon. the Deputy Minister nods his head.

What is the case with the service levy now?

He does not pay for the whole month now. If the employee works for, say, two days only, the employer only pays for a week, and does not pay for a whole month. The amount to be collected if the Government applies this measure will be considerable. We are at a disadvantage arguing about this Bill, because we do not know how it is going to be applied. We are completely in the dark. At any rate, the Government will not collect less than it does now.

The second point is that the hon. the Deputy Minister can differentiate between employers. He can also differentiate between areas. The Minister can, therefore, in order to make East London, for example, more attractive than Johannesburg, differentiate and make the employer of a certain industry in Johannesburg pay the full amount of R2,50, whereas the employer in East London need only pay 50 cents. The Minister will be entitled to do that; he can differentiate. With this measure the Government can, by means of taxation, force employers to carry out their policy. As this Bill is now, the Minister of Planning and his department is not necessary. The Government force industry to a certain area. The Department of Bantu Administration can do this by levying the full tax on other areas and giving taxation relief in the area to which they wish the factory to go. This is why the hon. the Deputy Minister would not tell us when we asked him what he meant by differentiation in areas. This is in fact what it means. As we read this Bill, he can apply different rates of taxation in different areas. I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will tell us whether we are wrong or not.

I can tell you straight away that you are wrong.

Do you mean to say that you cannot tax East London less than Johannesburg?

I will explain it to you later, but generally speaking you are wrong, because we will consult with the local administrations.

Consultation with this Government means nothing. When they state in a Bill that there will be consultation, everybody must be satisfied. We have had experience before about what consultation means to this Government. All it means is that the Government will tell people what to do. They will tell Johannesburg that they are going to put their tax up to R2,50 and Johannesburg will then be able to do absolutely nothing about it. They do not have to consult with East London if they want to reduce the amount to 50 cents.

I say we will consult, and the hon. member is carrying on with a bogey that is not true, and which he knows is not true. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Deputy Minister must withdraw that.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw.

The hon. member may proceed.

In terms of this Bill there is a limit to the tax which he can apply, namely R2,50. I have said that, at the moment, the tax amounts to approximately R1,05 per month without the initial registration fee of 25 cents. I have said too, that with the powers of taxation being given here now and the increase in the number of employees on whom taxes are going to be paid, the R1,05 could be reduced. There should not be any necessity to increase the ceiling, because once administration areas with administration boards have been brought into being, administration should be less costly. It should be more economic to run administration boards than individual municipalities, because duplication of staff will be eliminated. This provision—call it a levy or a contribution—of whatever amount is fixed, amounts to taxation. Parliament, by agreeing to this measure, will lose its control of taxation. It is like the Minister of Finance saying to us, “I am making a ceiling now. I am not going to put your income tax up to more than 90 per cent of your income. I do not think I will have to do that for ten years, but I want to take the power to do it.” This measure creates too much uncertainty. When you have taxation, it should be clear and ascertainable. Parliament should know who is going to be taxed. We cannot give a blank cheque to this Minister to tax whom he likes and to what amount he likes, up to R2,50 per month.

I should like to remind the House and the Minister that most of this taxation will come from the services levy. We remember that when that services levy was introduced, the employers were given the assurance by Dr. Verwoerd that as soon as it had served its purpose, it would be abolished. The Minister is not running away from that. He admits that that is what Dr. Verwoerd said. He has also admitted that local authorities have not been able to spend all the amounts collected under that services levy. Last year when we discussed this measure, we were given to understand that the total standing to the credit of the fund was something like R26 million. I suppose it is much more now. We quite agree that employers should contribute towards the services. We have no objection to their providing better amenities for the people whom they employ. But we also say that we should remember that Dr. Verwoerd promised that the services levy which they would pay, would only be used for the Africans whom they themselves employ.

You did not listen to my speech.

I listened to your speech. There can be no objection to an employer’s levy being used to house his employees in some other area, but the Minister is circumventing Dr. Verwoerd’s promise by introducing this measure, because he does away with the name “services levy”, while still keeping the tax. I have no doubt that all the surpluses that they have at the moment will be paid over to the Bantu Administration boards when they take over and that they will be used for purposes other than the purposes for which the services levy was imposed.

You should read clause 4.

He has read it.

I have read it. Sir, I ask the hon. member: Is the money going to be kept then only for the purpose for which the service levy was imposed?

Go and read what the Act provides.

I have read the Bill, and the Deputy Minister himself admitted that he wanted to use the money for other purposes, and I do not blame him. There is no point in just having the money lying there; it has been collected.

†Sir, we have no objection to a consolidating measure which will provide for one payment instead of three. It will really be one payment instead of two. We have no objection to that because it would lessen the paper work to be done by the local authorities and by the employers, and we have no objection to the money being used for better administration and for better amenities for the Bantu concerned, but we object to the way in which it is being done and we object to giving the Minister the power to tax in this manner without telling Parliament exactly how the money is going to be used and where the money is going to come from. Sir, you cannot leave industrialists or employers in a state of uncertainty, not knowing when they are going to be taxed, not through Parliament but by the Minister. We say that the system is wrong and we will oppose this measure.

At the end of his speech the hon. member for Transkei particularly laid emphasis on the money being paid over to the Bantu administration boards. In that connection it is important that we note that the Bantu-administration boards are specifically bodies instituted to deal with the Bantu labourer in a White area. In a certain sense, in terms of the measures adopted here last year, the work done by local authorities on an agency basis, as agents of the Central Authority, is partly transferred to the administration boards, and if this levy, about which the hon. member is so concerned, goes to the administration boards, it surely serves the specific purpose we had in mind in passing the Bantu Services Levy Act. This Bill serves the specific purpose for which the Bantu Services Levy Act was introduced; the money is transferred to the administration boards. The field covered by these two Acts is exactly the same. The hon. member also hit out strongly at the hon. the Deputy Minister about the assurance Dr. Verwoerd gave that if the levies were no longer necessary, the Act would be repealed. But, Sir, today we are dealing with the practical fact that there are certain local authorities that cannot use the levies. One of our motives in the establishment of these administration boards is to bring about greater labour fluidity and everything connected with that. In my view the Opposition’s attitude is diametrically opposed to their own policy, since throughout the years they have been so-called advocates of greater labour fluidity and have advocated that actually there should be no restrictions by way of influx control on the labour fluidity …

That is not true.

Today the Opposition wants to imply here that the fact that certain moneys, collected in terms of the Bantu Services Levy Act, has virtually become unnecessary, proves that that Act must be done away with. What then about the Opposition’s demands that more Bantu labour be made available and, in addition, that there be greater labour mobility within a certain specific area? We have established the Bantu administration boards to bring this about. It is important that we tell the Opposition that under the National Party’s dispensation certain things took place in respect of urban development within the Bantu homelands, having a direct bearing on the Bantu in the White area. The hon. the Minister referred to the fact that there are certain local authorities which have already made donations for the development of Bantu townships in the Bantu homelands. Hon. members are now terribly concerned about the development of Bantu townships within the Bantu homelands, but we have already seen how this works in practice. We also have examples of such Bantu townships in the Western Transvaal, where contributions for their development are made by local authorities. That action was aimed chiefly at removing the unproductive Bantu from the White areas, and to make housing and various facilities available for the productive Bantu. This is in accordance with our policy of supplying housing for the productive Bantu within the White area and removing the others. I will not allow myself to be told that there is no connection between the two, and our White urban areas and local authorities must assist in the development of certain Bantu townships within the Bantu homelands, not only indirectly, but actually and directly. In this connection I could mention many examples. It is wrong simply to say about this legislation, which gives the Minister certain powers to employ money in the interests of the Bantu, that the Minister is only going to use those powers to employ money for development in the Bantu homelands to take place. I say: If development takes place in the Bantu homelands, and that development originates as a result of the establishment of Bantu townships created to relieve the position within the White area, this is always still beneficial to the White employer. This is something the original Bantu Services Levy Act also aimed at. Consequently from the Opposition side there can be no argument about us simply using this money for the development of the Bantu homelands. If we develop Bantu townships within the Bantu homelands, affording relief to the situation in the White area, it is as much in the interests of the employer in the White area, as in anyone else’s interests.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question? Is it fair that money collected in Johannesburg should be used for this purpose if that city has no Bantu coming from a homeland every day?

Johannesburg will make its own decision about that.

Sir, we have never said that we would simply take that money. This legislation states: If a surplus exists in respect of that account, the hon. the Minister and his department can negotiate with the city concerned—for example, the Johannesburg City Council— to make certain concessions to other municipalities. Let me explain it to the hon. member in this way: The Johannesburg City Council supplies services in certain Bantu townships round Johannesburg, for example Soweto, Alexandra, etc., but the Randburg Town Council does not do so.

The Randburg Town Council may have certain revenue from any of the four sources of revenue mentioned in this legislation, but they are under no obligation to supply any services. After consultation it could then be decided that the Randburg Town Council must make a contribution to the Johannesburg City Council for the services funished in Bantu residential areas in the White area. The hon. member did not understand me correctly and I should like to come back to his question. I have never claimed that money was simply going to be taken from Johannesburg to be sent into the Bantu homelands for development there. But we have had examples, for instance that of the 14 towns in the Western Transvaal which had surpluses on their levy and Bantu beer accounts. They simply got together, there was co-operation and a central township by the name of Itsoseng, between Lichtenburg and Mafeking, is at present developing. Those municipalities accepted responsibility for the development of that specific township, and this township affords relief within the White area in that all unproductive Bantu are removed from those areas so that place can be made for productive Bantu within those areas. My point is now that if this happens—and the Minister now obtains the power in terms of this Bill to make possible for those municipalities what they already do in practice by way of donations—surely the position in the White area is relieved, and to the White area can come more Bantu who can be productively active there. I can see no objection to that. In fact, this is the rectification of a position that already exists today. [Interjections.] The hon. members may make their own speeches. I do not have the time to answer questions now.

The hon. member for Transkei also claimed here that the Bill before us is not a consolidating measure, but rather one that is appearing de novo before this House and in which the hon. the Deputy Minister is appropriating certain powers for himself. Anyone who looks properly at this Bill will see that it merely contains a collection of consolidating measures. I would perhaps concede one point to the hon. member for Transkei, i.e. that where the measure provides for a maximum fee of R2,50 per month that must be paid, as the Deputy Minister said, that fee is not merely a comprehensive one in relation to the existing fees under the various Acts relevant here. But the hon. the Deputy Minister indicated that the time was ripe for certain increases in those fees to take place, for the sake of the proper functioning of the administration. It is wrong to claim now that if the Deputy Minister provides that there will be a maximum fee of R2,50, it deprives this Parliament of the power to determine the taxes. I think the hon. member must go and determine the difference between a tax and a levy. There is a big difference between the two. A tax applies where someone is taxed on certain factual information relating to income. In the broad sense of the word levies deal with administration moneys collected in order to provide certain services. It has nothing to do with taxes in the normal sense of the word; it has to do with the establishment of funds for the purposes of administration. Now, the Deputy Minister sets it at R2,50, while at this stage it is in the vicinity of R1,05. However, the Deputy Minister said very expressly that it is a measure intended to ensure that we would not have to return to Parliament every year in order to amend this matter. And it is quite logical that where one is dealing with levies and administration moneys it must not be necessary to come back to Parliament each time for the amendment of such an Act.

Then there is the question of the various classes of employers. I think the Deputy Minister will reply to that in greater detail. But I think that if it is not stated in any of the other Acts that the State and the farming industry must pay for their employees, or whatever the case must be, it is quite right that, with respect to these services being furnished at all levels, we now include all employers in these relevant provisions.

But are you going to include them all? That is the question.

I shall reply to that.

The Deputy Minister has already intimated that the State’s labourers and so on are being included. In principle, in terms of this legislation, all employers can be included, but there is authorisation for the Minister to decide upon the classification for inclusion. And then it is very important—simple common sense tells one—that one cannot make a provision which can simply be taken right through. There are circumstances that have to be taken into consideration and those circumstances will definitely be taken into consideration when it is determined what employers will be included and what their classification will be. I think the hon. members must be very careful if they want to criticize us on that specific point and were to come forward with the argument, for example, that the moneys for a domestic servant and that for a man working in an industry or factory should be exactly the same. The hon. members must be very careful what they do in that connection. We on this side depart from the standpoint that differentiation is possible, that it will take place with discretion and that it will not simply be a rigouristic determination and no more. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister will indicate that at this stage, for example, there is an idea that farmers will not be included. These are matters that the Deputy Minister can indicate to you. The principle that all employers are being included is, however, correct. The second principle that cannot be circumvented is that there must be ministerial discretion, and the Minister must exercise that discretion with respect to the classification of the specific employers and employees.

The hon. member also tried to insinuate that by way of taxation this Deputy Minister, as he put it, could now force employers in South Africa to accept, for example, the policy of border area development—I think that is what he implied. The hon. member referred to the possibility of the tax in Johannesburg being R2,50, but that in East London only 15 cents, thereby forcing people to go to the border industries.

Is that possible.

The hon. member must not dispose of the whole question of consultation. I also remember very well how last year these hon. members referred disparagingly to this Government’s idea of consultation with respect to this question of the relationship between the Central Government and the provincial authorities and also this question of the Bantu Administration Board. However, if he would take a little trouble I think that hon. member could determine how far the hon. member for Langlaagte and his committee have already progressed with the establishment of these administration boards in consultation with various groups of people. In fact, so much progress has been made that in the urban complexes there are local authorities that are now hurrying that hon. member and this hon. Minister along for want of administration boards. This we have obtained on the grounds of consultation. I can quite understand that those hon. members cannot join in discussions about consultation, because they cannot even consult each other in a no confidence debate—let alone consult with other people! However, this Government has built up a reputation with respect to consultation, not only with other peoples in South Africa, but also with several bodies in South Africa. There is abundant proof that that consultation will take place. Saying that the hon. the Deputy Minister and his department will ask R2,50 in Johannesburg and 15 cents in East London, simply to force all the people to the border industry at East London, is a ridiculous example to use.

But it is possible.

There are many other concomitant matters which the Government has already laid down. The absurdity of this argument can be seen in the Riekert Commissions’ White Paper where there are definite provisions about what the relationship should be, etc. But it is ridiculous—and I think the hon. member realizes it—to say now that by means of these quite simple administrative levies, about which there has been talk, coercion in the form of taxes is going to be applied to employers to force them to the border industry areas.

But is that not possible?

It is not possible because consultations are going to take place. Neither the Johannesburg or East London local authorities, whatever authorities are concerned in the matter, would be so foolish that on this specific point of consultation they would not see the matter in the correct perspective. Just as hon. members predicted that these administration boards of ours would not get off the ground, while we have nevertheless made brilliant progress with our own manner of consultation, the hon. the Minister will also be able to progress in this matter of consultation. We must not present that kind of argument to the public at large as being a valid argument, i.e. that this is a tax that is going to be imposed on employers simply to ensure that the Government’s policy in the border industry areas is implemented. This is, after all, merely to conjure up spectres and will create amongst employers an antagonistic attitude towards all the provisions of this legislation. Since this legislation with its consolidating provisions is specifically aimed at facilitating certain matters for the employers and eliminating a great deal of paper work, it is altogether wrong of the hon. member to use that type of argument in this House and then to propagate that attitude to the outside world. This is wrong because it is not only detrimental to the general growth of the country, but also to the orderly planning of South Africa, and the hon. member knows it. The hon. member also referred to the State’s employers. I briefly want to refer to that and state very clearly that we on our side are quite prepared to have the State also fall under this legislation, as was not the case in the past.

I did not object to that.

The hon. member asks all kinds of questions while the legislation states that all employers are included. That is very clear. It is clear that all employers are included: the principle is contained in this legislation.

I shall reply to that.

Until such time as the Minister tells the hon. member the contrary, he must accept that all employers must pay fees in terms of this legislation. Surely that is very logical; there is nothing wrong if I thus interpret the words contained in this clause. This includes all employers, and until such time as the Minister gives some other indication, the hon. member must argue as if all employers are included. We on this side of the House have no objection to all employers being included.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just sat down was very busy explaining to the House that employers, as the law stands at the moment, are in any event liable under the Bantu Services Levy Act. I think he tried to make it very clear that any criticism that this bill extended the source of contributions was incorrect. In the Bantu Services Levy Act it is definitely provided that—

1. (a) any domestic servant employed by a private householder; or
2. (b) any adult male Bantu for whom his employer provides accommodation approved by any competent authority having jurisdiction …

There are a number of exclusions. As the position stood at the end of September, 1971, in Johannesburg, I believe 43 000 employers at least would have been excluded as against the position today. I would rather leave that for a moment and just say that the effect of this Bill, the purpose of this Bill does not present the beautiful picture which the hon. the Deputy Minister has tried to paint to us in his opening address. It was extraordinary to the listener to hear this beautiful euphoric story which the hon. the Deputy Minister put before this House, of his intense and sincere desire to ensure the best interests of the urban Bantu. Whilst I highly commend that, and would do nothing in the world to decry the purpose and the nobility of that thought, I do say that it sounded most extraordinary in his introduction to this Bill. I say this because this Biill is intended to provide the funds that the Bantu Administration Boards will require in order effectively to administer the services that they are going to render in their administration. First of all, they will need much more money than the Native services levy provided. Secondly, the losses of which they complained local authorities were suffering because of additional services to the urban Bantu would have to be made up. This was the way in which it could be done. It was, therefore, necessary to do away with the necessity for collecting funds under the Native Services Levy Act and to have an entirely new Bill altogether. This Bill just sailed merrily along and provided for contributions for any purposes within or allied to that particular prescribed area where a particular board or authority operated. It completely widened the entire source of funds which these boards would receive and the purposes to which it should be applied. Hitherto the R26 million which has been bothering the hon. the Minister for a couple of years could not be used because he has been tied to an undertaking which a former Prime Minister gave this House, an undertaking which he does not want to dishonour and, I take it, will not dishonour. Therefore he has to find another means of raising the funds that are necessary in order to avoid bringing to an end the wonderful flow of funds which comes so easily into the hands of the authorities and which he now wishes to use for any purpose at all. What I do not wish to decry is what the hon. the Deputy Minister said in his opening words. Will he indeed use it for all the purposes which he has described to us? I just want to mention the City of Johannesburg as an example. I do not hold any brief for the particular authority because the authority, in any event, is passing into the hands of a Bantu Administration Board one of these days. In Soweto you will require anything up to R6 million or R7 million to meet the immediate shortage of schools. This is one simple example of the services that are required. In the case of Johannesburg there was a deficit of R2½ million in the Bantu Revenue Account last year. This was very severely criticized by people like the hon. member for Langlaagte and by the hon. the Deputy Minister himself. However, that shortage was due to the fact that services of an urgent, important and useful nature, such as the hon. the Deputy Minister described in this euphoric address, were required, and because there were not sufficient funds in the Bantu Revenue Account to meet the costs, the ratepayers subsidized it to the extent of 2½ million. A year ago it was severely criticized. A year ago it showed maladministration, it showed irresponsibility, it showed the inability of an authority to handle its affairs properly. That was the allegation made by hon. members on that side of the House. Yet, with this Bill the hon. the Deputy Minister hopes to rake in from Johannesburg alone at R1,05 over R5 million per year. If he goes up to R1,50, it will be nearly R8 million, and if he goes up to R2, which he probably will, he will rake in just on R10 million from this one source alone.

Why do you say “which he probably will”?

Mr. Speaker, let us not bluff ourselves. The time has come not to bluff ourselves. The reason why it is necessary to place a ceiling is that it is vizualized that you cannot come back to Parliament year after year for more money. Here you have an opportunity to increase your income by many millions of rands. The discretion will rest with the Minister. All that is needed is a proclamation in the Government Gazette and the funds will be available to meet an enormous task which hitherto has been shirked and in respect of which there is a tremendous backlog, brought about because of the non-cooperation of the Government with local authorities in dealing with the urban Bantu. But I do not want the hon. the Deputy Minister to be upset at what I am saying. I merely want him to face the facts. I just want him to know that, if he does apply it satisfactorily—as has been questioned by one of the hon. members on our side of the House—for the purposes he has declared, namely clinics, crèches, sports fields, sporting amenities, technical training, schools, cultural assistance to young people and for recreational purposes, I can understand that there may be a purpose in bringing the services levy to an end. The citizens will co-operate if what the hon. the Minister said is correct, and I am sure it will be. I certainly hope that it is correct. I want him to know that the House must not be left under the wrong impression that this is merely an easier method from an administrative point of view to ease the burden of perhaps, the employer of labour, allowing him to make a payment of just one sum without the necessity for a lot of additional paper work, etc. It has a very much more important and wider purpose, namely to obtain funds for a purpose. This brings me to a point which was argued a little while ago, namely how will we know what happens to the funds. Parliament, which has to give the power to the hon. the Deputy Minister to enable his administration to obtain these funds, should know what will happen to these funds. Parliament should know what is received so that the citizen can raise his voice if necessary where he is entitled to do so, either in criticism or in order to make clear to the administration and the Government his point of view with regard to the use and purpose of the funds which will be paid. Whilst it may be called a levy by an hon. member on the Government side, it is a form of indirect taxation.

Oh, you are talking nonsense.

Did the hon. member for Langlaagte say that? He probably listens to himself; that is the only way in which he can ever make a speech in this House. He probably recall his own speech. I am not talking through the back of my neck; I know what I am talking about. This is not a levy any more, but an indirect form of taxation in order to provide the necessary funds for the administration of the Bantu Administration Board. The hon. member for Langlaagte is being critical only because he is sitting on the special committee in Pretoria which is going to work out the constitution of the various boards throughout the country. Of course he does like the idea of the public considering it as a levy. It cannot be a levy; it has no objective other than proper administration, I hope. Since it has that object, it is an indirect form of taxation. Therefore Parliament has the right to know how the money is being spent and administered.

I further want to say that the hon. the Deputy Minister tried to laugh out of court the question of R100 million per year. Johannesburg certainly does not represent more than 10 per cent or 15 per cent of the entire labour force of the country. Is that not so? If it represents 20 per cent, about R30 million at least will be obtained every year, plus the bureau fees and the fact that there are many more people being taxed.

The figure of R100 million for the present is absolute nonsense.

I never said that that was the figure. I am merely telling the hon. the Deputy Minister that it is practically going to reach that figure …

He says he is going to reply to that.

He says he will and I hope he will.

Of course I will.

The hon. the Minister promised he would give us the figure. What we on this side of the House feel is the correct procedure is that the hon. the Minister of Finance should account to Parliament yearly for the expenditure of these funds, and what he estimates the income from these funds will be for the purposes for which they are required. Otherwise, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Umtata, it is as if a blank cheque were put in the hands of the hon. the Minister, which we feel is not wise. Now we have talk about consultation. This question of consultation is purely at the behest of the hon. the Deputy Minister. There is no provision for consultation in the Bill. We have that in the Bantu Affairs Administration Act of 1971; I think one or two sections of that Act speak of consultation with the local authorities when making certain changes. Nothing to that effect is said in this Bill. The hon. the Deputy Minister gives us his assurance that he will consult but if he is not in office next year and his successor might even be an hon. member on this side, I am sure, he may not want to consult because he finds no provision in the Act.

We will not have any deputies.

The point is that if there is to be consultation provision should be made in the Bill, and not merely a statement by the hon. the Deputy Minister in the House.

The other point is the question of the differentiation of charges. This is a very important aspect of the Bill and I believe that differentiation is something which should, by means of the Budget, be something that can be dealt with in this House. One does not know how it will be applied, because it is also purely at the discretion of the hon. the Minister. Quite frankly, I do not know how the boards will be constituted and which remote towns will be included. We may find that big centres will be paying for the development of areas completely outside their interests, areas which make no contribution whatsoever to the source from which the funds come. That is a responsibility which should rest on the shoulders of the State and not one which should be passed on to the industrialist or to the employer of labour. I feel that if there is to be consultation at all, this question of consultation should also be embodied in this clause which provides for differentiation.

I want to make it perfectly clear to the hon. the Deputy Minister that this side of the House is very anxious to ensure that the whole approach to the problem of the urban Bantu is a sound and realistic one. Its objectives should be to ensure that there is proper housing; that there are proper race relations between White and non-White; that amenities are provided, amenities that will make them a contented and stable community; that electricity is provided in consultation with local authorities or other electricity authorities who operate in the country; that a blueprint is established in conjunction with a Bill of this nature, a blueprint that will ensure that all these amenities are catered for. The hon. the Deputy Minister will then be in a position to approach the employer and set the figure which he wishes to set in respect of contributions for each employee. I feel that without doing so the Government will fall into its old habit, something which we have criticized constantly and something which unsettles and dissatisfies the public, namely that globular sums are voted through the instrumentality of a Bill and that no one really knows how that money is applied except as the department through the discretion of the Minister applies it. I feel this is not a fair load to throw on to the shoulders of the industrialist and the employer of labour in the various towns throughout the country.

I want to make one final point. I think the Government must realize that it is unable to handle this important problem in our country unless it has the co-operation and the goodwill of the employer and John Citizen. I think the Government should realize that it cannot rule virtually by decree or try to lull the public into a false sense of reality in this country, to make them believe things that do not exist, to make them believe that everything is rosy and under control and that everybody is happy. We do know that in the country today there is more unhappiness, hatred and conflict than we have had in many, many years. These are not physical conflicts …

Oh, come on!

The hon. the Deputy Minister must not say that. He knows it as well as I do. Here is an opportunity for him to do something worth while, provided he can make the satisfactory changes in this Bill which will enable it to be a workable measure, one that will contribute towards the welfare of the community, that will help each particular area which makes its contribution to meet the problem that faces it. If you have a city with ¾ million, you must use all the funds you have available there, because it is very difficult, almost impossible, to satisfy its needs even through the funds that will flow from this Bill. This very principle that is contained here of diffusing those funds, I think will undoubtedly foil any assurances which the Deputy Minister has given us that this Bill will work satisfactorily and carry out these dreams which he puts before us and which I hope he really means to carry out.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin on the same note on which the hon. member for Jeppes concluded and point out to him that his own city of which he was for a considerable time, I think, the first citizen, bears the best testimony to the contributions that can be collected from the employer. Members on this side of the House visited Soweto, Meadowlands and bordering areas during the recess. What did we encounter there? Not “more hatred”, which the hon. member for Jeppes speaks about; we encountered a smiling, happy community there. They are people cultivating their gardens, who are happy with the kind of housing they have, and who have recreational facilities they are proud of. But, alas, like a monument to the obstinacy of that side of the House in definitely providing proper housing for the Bantu, there is still the area known as Pimville. It stands there like a monument, a finger pointing at the other side of the House. And one can also recall their resistance of all the legislation which led and contributed to the financing of better housing and resettlement in those areas. The hon. member is not listening to me. I take it he does not want to listen because he does not have any reply. Because he does not have a reply, the hon. member levels the accusation here about there being more hatred in these times than ever before. Unfortunately we gain the impression that every inch of progress towards goodwill which this side of the House makes or tried to make, is regretted by that side of the House, specifically by someone like the hon. member for Jeppes.

During the Second Reading debate last year about the Bill which led to the passing of the Bantu Administration Boards Act, the hon. member for Transkei pointed out that the Bantu Revenue Account is not strong enough to provide for all the Bantu administration services in places such as Johannesburg or Cape Town, for example. He himself pointed that out. The question now is, what then is his solution? His solution—and also that of the hon. member for Jeppes—is apparently that we must come to this House with a system of taxation. Sir, it does not take much political knowledge and experience to know in advance that if we came to this House with a well-ordered tax proposal, that side of the House would hit the roof. That side of the House must tell us today whether they accept it as the collective responsibility of all employers and White South Africa, to establish a mobile labour force in the White Area.

That is what they are asking for here every day. The moment they accept that principle, a look must be taken at the financing of the essential services for this working community. If we look at the aspects the hon. the Deputy Minister mentioned as being involved in these services, we find that each of these facets can contribute to our having a happier labour community in White South Africa. We refer to the provision of water, sanitary services, the provision of electricity, roads, clinics and health services, recreational facilities, community centres, libraries, aid centres, etc. If this is endorsed in principle —and I want to emphasize this—then that side of the House has no right to object to the establishment of this system of contributions by certain Bantu and employers. Sir, what is important is that while that side of the House regrets our coming forward here with a uniform levy, at the same time they do not see the employers’ side of things. The employer will now make a single monthly payment instead of three levies, i.e. labour bureau fees, registration fees and service levies. The last one is calculated weekly at 20 per cent per Bantu worker. Those who have experience of this calculation will know that it is a complicated formula; a troublesome document must be completed every month. These matters are now all being consolidated for the joint benefit of the employer and the employee.

Sir, the hon. member for Transkei has now returned and I just want to dwell on one or two of his introductory remarks which contain his entire argument against this Bill, i.e. that in this Bill there is a deviation from the approach of this side of the House at the time when Dr. Verwoerd piloted through the Bantu Services Levy Bill. But he goes further. From the trend of his speech it is clear that he doubts our wanting to make the Bantu worker a happy worker in the White area. Sir, the hon. member for Transkei does not realize what is really being envisaged here. He does not realize what the purport of our policy is. The purport of our policy is, in fact, that as we link up the Bantu to his homeland, his fatherland, he will become a happier person and a happier worker in White South Africa. For him a greater amount of certainty will take root.

Sir, he linked that up to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s announcement last week. What nonsense! For example, if I were to go and work in England or America for a year or longer and obtain a visa for myself only, not for my family, and after two or three years I am granted leave to have my wife join me, does that mean that that country has changed its policy? That is precisely what is happening here, and precisely what provision is being made for here. As our policy develops further and this worker’s orientation becomes homeland-centred, he will become a happier worker here, provided that side of the House does not purposely botch up the position further.

As regards the one particular clause with which the Opposition is dealing, i.e. the discretion of the hon. the Minister to exclude by way of proclamation certain kinds of employers or employees and areas from the present legal provision, I want to point out the positive content of this arrangement. It can only lead to the Opposition’s continually being in a position to keep their finger on the pulse and continually to test the Deputy Minister’s discretion in this House, and if they do not do so they will be neglecting their duty, and then that is what they are admitting by implication. This side of the House sees that measure as a logical result and continuation of the Bantu Administration Boards Act which was passed here last year. This side of the House sees it as a further development of the policy of giving South Africa a well-ordered and mobile, but also a happy, labour force in the White area.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, the hon. member for Bloemfontein West, can really be described as a mixed-up kind. I almost said “a crazy, mixed-up kid”, but I think you, Sir, would make me withdraw it if I said it. Sir, what is he talking about? What has he been talking about these last 15 minutes?

About the Bill.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says he has been talking about the Bill, but I am wondering which Bill.

Not a “botterbul”.

The only time he really referred to the Bill was when he said that the object now is that there should be only one monthly payment. Sir, he has not read the Bill, or if he has read the Bill, he still does not know what he is talking about. All that is happening here is that two periodic payments are being consolidated into one, plus one payment which is made once only, when a Bantu is taken into employment, but that is also being consolidated and I will talk about that to the hon. the Deputy Minister in a few moments. Sir, there are five different levies which are levied upon the employers of Bantu labour in this country, and all that is happening under this Bill now is that there are going to be four instead of five separate payments. We are not consolidating them all into one payment, or is it the intention of the Government to repeal all the other Acts? Will the hon. the Deputy Minister tell us?

You do not know what you are talking about.

Let him answer the question. Is he going to repeal the other Acts which provide for other levies upon the employers of Bantu in this country?

Five levies are being levied now and three of the five are being consolidated.

Sir, the third one that he is consolidating is not a periodic levy; it is the levy which is levied once only when you register a Bantu for employment. It is not a weekly or monthly levy. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not know his own law?

It is a registration fee.

There are three. Where do you get the fourth from that you mentioned just now?

The hon. the Deputy Minister says there are three which are now being consolidated.

Where do you get the fourth one from?

Let us deal with one point at a time. The fourth one is the 50 cents licence fee which is paid by an employer who employs more than one Bantu in a local authority.

Where do you get the fourth one from?

I am telling the hon. the Deputy Minister what the fourth one is. The fourth one is the 50 cents licence fee which is levied by the local authority upon certain employers in the urban areas where they employ more than one Bantu. That amounts to R6 a year. The fifth one is the transport levy which is levied on certain employers. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister not know about this, or is it his intention to repeal it?

You do not know.

The hon. member must not come and say that this Bill is consolidating them all into one payment for easy administration, because that is not what is happening. As I say, all that is happening is that five are being consolidated into four, as though this is going to be a tremendous advantage to employers of Bantu labour in this country. No, Sir, the hon. member for Bloemfontein West must not try to bluff us. He started off by saying that we on this side of the House must say whether we want a mobile labour force in South Africa. Sir, how many times have we told them what we want? How many times have we not advised them what to do to provide for just such a labour force? But I want to go further. How many times have we pleaded with those on that side of the House to make it a happy mobile labour force through the provision of certain amenities in the urban areas? And what have we had in the past? The hon. member admits that we have pleaded for it. I am glad to hear that he admits it because then somebody at least on the opposite side concedes that we have done so. But what has been the answer every time we asked for it? What is the answer of the hon. the Minister of Community Development? That we must not make things too comfortable for them in the urban areas; they must be attracted back to the homelands by making it far more comfortable for them in the homelands; we do not want any of the Bantu in the White areas.

That was the reply of that hon. Minister when he was Deputy Minister of Bantu Administration. But what did the predecessor of the hon. the Deputy Minister say? He said the repatriation of families was priority number one. And then the hon. member for Bloemfontein West tells us this afternoon that there is no change in their policy, now that this Deputy Minister has announced belatedly, that they are prepared to allow certain Bantu wives to stay in the urban areas. But he says there is no change. What did the present Administrator of the Free State, when he held the post of this hon. Deputy Minister, say? He said that the repatriation of families was priority number one. He said that the repatriation of 3,8 million of these superfluous appendages, as he called them, was in his opinion priority number one, and that was in February, 1969, three years ago. But this Deputy Minister says that there has been no change in policy. He bases his argument on the fact that this Government, as he puts it, established a forum whereby negotiations could take place with the Bantu authorities for this very concession.

And all the Bantu ask for the application of United Party policy.

Yes. I hope hon. members heard that. All that the Bantu are asking for is for the application of United Party policy. That is all they are asking for, but it has taken 23 years for this Government to see the light, and then this Deputy Minister comes with this fatuous argument that because this change was brought about through negotiations in a forum created by that Government’s policy, therefore there has been no change in policy; and the hon. member for Bloemfontein West says the same thing. What I want to say to that hon. Deputy Minister is this: I believe he is honest when he says that he will allow the wives of Bantu workers, those who are “fairly permanently” employed, to come and settle in the White areas. I accept his honesty, but he has added a rider to this statement: provided that the amenities are there. Now I want to challenge that hon. Deputy Minister to carry out that promise. But he cannot carry out that promise if he continues with this sort of legislation. In terms of this sort of legislation the money which should be used for the provision of housing and the other amenities upon which the entry of a wife of a Bantu is dependant is going to be channelled outside of those areas to other areas. That is the most iniquitous thing about this Bill. How that Deputy Minister can make this statement in the same week in which he introduces legislation like this, I simply cannot understand, because the one cannot be reconciled with the other. I sincerely hope the hon. the Deputy Minister is honest and that he will allow these Bantu to bring in their wives, but he cannot if he continues with this legislation. Because what do we find in this legislation? This is an extension of the principle which was accepted and introduced by that party and opposed by this party last year in this House, namely that the funds which will be available to the Bantu Administration Boards may be used outside of the areas of jurisdiction of those Bantu Administration Boards and that they can go to the Bantu homelands. It is all very well for the hon. ex-member for Benoni to interject and say that that money can only go to the homelands if the Johannesburg City Council gives it away or makes a gift of it. Sir, does that hon. member not know the regulations which he is now charged with implementing?

There is nothing like that.

He is busy preparing the establishment of a Bantu Administration Board in the Transvaal now, to include the Johannesburg area, and he knows that on that board there will be people whom his Government will appoint and one representative of the Johannesburg City Council—one only—and then he says it is going to be in the power of the Johannesburg City Council to make donations. How can he mislead this House like that? I hope he is ashamed of himself. I sincerely hope that that statement of his will not go outside this House in an attempt to mislead the public of South Africa, because that is not so. It is the board which will decide where this money is to go. Admittedly I know that all this talk which has been going on that the Minister will be able to take this money is rot, and I am glad to put it on record. I accept that it is rot. The Minister cannot take the money but he is setting in motion the machinery, which he will control, whereby he will get that money into the homelands and out of the urban areas where it belongs.

If they give it by way of donations, yes.

If they give it by way of donation, freely and voluntarily, good luck. We need this. But let me put the record straight in regard to something else. We are not opposed to the development of the Bantu homelands either, and the hon. the Deputy Minister knows it, but what we are opposed to is taking the funds which should be used for the improvement of the lot of the urban Bantu and using that money in the homelands in pursuance of an ideology.

But we are not going to do that.

I am very glad to get this assurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister. We believe that the Bantu homelands must be developed, but they must be developed by moneys voted by this Parliament and not moneys taken away from urban areas where it should be used for other purposes. I am very glad to get that.

The hon. the Deputy Minister made two statements when he introduced this measure; he said that the workers can only work properly if they are happy; I accept that. But he went further and said that it was desirable that the local authorities should voluntarily canalize moneys to the homelands. Now, Sir, I hope he is not going to bring too much pressure to bear on these local authorities because these Bantu cannot be happy if they have not got amenities. I am sure the Deputy Minister realizes that. I hope he will stick to the undertaking he has given me and leave the money there and for the provision of these amenities; and let us make these areas as luxurious and as nice as possible for them.

But I must cross swords with the hon. the Deputy Minister on another point, and that is the question of the use to which he can put the powers for which he is asking in this Bill, particularly the power to canalize industry to those points where he wants it to go. I have heard him deny this while other members on this side have been talking, but I have not heard him really give any assurances on this point. We would like to have clarity from him how he intends applying the powers for which he is asking here. It is an old trick of this Government’s to come with a Bill like this and to ask for blanket powers without telling us exactly how they are going to use those powers. In the case of the hon. the Minister of Justice and the hon. the Minister of Police, as was pointed out in the debate here last week, we have had occasions where the Government has said that they want these powers but that they will only use them in a certain direction, and then we have found that they have used them in another direction. If this Bill is accepted as it is today, an industrialist could find himself paying R3,85 a month per Bantu employee. That is the maximum amount that could be levied on him today, the maximum amount which he could be taxed today by this Government. Using the hon. the Deputy Minister’s own analogy, we could find that at Putsonderwater the total tax to the Government is only 5 cents. There is a factory close to me which employs 500 Bantu. This number, at R4 per month each, means a total of nearly R120 000 per year. Surely it is going to be worth the while of that industrialist, if he is centred in Johannesburg, to move his industry to Putsonderwater? This is what we mean and we should like an assurance from the hon. the Deputy Minister that this is not what is behind the power he is asking for, to be able to differentiate between industries in different areas. What we should like from the hon. the Deputy Minister is an assurance that within an industry there will not be such a great variation as I have pointed out. I have taken the two extremes; I accept that. I had to take them to illustrate my point. I hope that the hon. the Deputy Minister will give us an assurance that if, for instance, an industrialist in the clothing industry in Johannesburg has to pay R2 in tax, he will not tax an industrialist in the clothing industry in one of the border areas at only 10 or 15 cents; that there will not be a large variation in the amount that he will tax an industrialist in a particular field; that the taxing should be similar.

The question remains, even if we receive the assurances which I have sought from the hon. the Deputy Minister, that an undertaking was given to the industrialists of this country by the late Dr. Verwoerd when he introduced the Bantu Services Lew Bill, and if this provision is accepted as we have it today, it is going to perpetuate that levy in a different guise. If for no other reason, we on this side of the House must oppose this measure.

Mr. Speaker, the impression one gains is that the United Party is afraid that the homelands have to be developed, and that they want to divert from the homelands all funds that are obtainable in some way or another for the development of the homelands. That is the impression one gains. It was said by the hon. member for Jeppes that this Bill would net about R200 000 …

No, R200 million.

Now what was it he said? Yes, it would net R100 million. We know that when the purchase tax was introduced, the same predictions were made, and they never proved to be correct—they were all wrong.

What does the hon. member think the amount will be?

The registration fee of 20 cents was introduced in 1923. How many years ago was 1923? This Bantu services levy was introduced in 1952—it amounts to 85 cents per month. Then there is also the additional amount of 20 cents per week which the hon. member mentioned. That is a non-recurring amount of 20 cents that has to be paid.

Twenty-five cents.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is 25 cents; I beg your pardon. The position is that these moneys were sufficient for a long time, but it cannot always be sufficient to meet the needs which have to be provided for. That is why the Minister now has the right to increase the amount to R2,50, but this is not to say that this amount will be implemented as such. It may also be less. However, for the next five or 10 years this will meet the basic needs for which it may be collected. On the other hand, one should perhaps ask the question of whether it is not as a result of a lack of funds that the Bantu administration services are so poor today. Is it not perhaps as a result of this fact that adequate services cannot be rendered? I think the hon. the Deputy Minister put it very well in his introductory speech when he said it was based on the demand for labour, the provision of labour and the training of labour. We know there is a demand for labour throughout South Africa. Everyone wants a labourer, and those labourers have to be provided. In order to meet those basic needs, funds are necessary. The result is that those labourers cannot simply be caught in their wild state and deposited among industrialists. They must be trained, and that is why it is still going to cost a great deal of money to train them. The question has been asked here …

Are they wild?

I think the hon. member does not know what it is all about.

Yes, but I am asking whether they are wild.

I do not think they are as wild as some other people were. The position is that those people have to be trained and that we need funds to train them. The hon. member for Transkei wanted to know where those people were going to be trained. Surely those people are going to be trained in their homelands; where else will they be trained?

Where are they going to work?

That is where they should be trained, and if we do not train those people in their homelands, surely we are going to do those people an injustice. That is why I believe that this legislation is very important for the implementation of our policy as it stands.

Mr. Speaker, a great deal has been said as regards this legislation, and I just want to raise a few points. Before dealing with the merits of the case, I want to deal with one point raised by the hon. the Deputy Minister. He said he disapproved of the fact that so much advance publicity, and the wrong kind of advance publicity, had been given to this Bill. If there were mistakes, I want to lay them at his door. I think he should rather have followed the procedure he did on the eve of this Session when his Department conducted Press interviews and informed the Press about certain Bills. As far as this legislation is concerned, the legislation was announced, but no explanatory memorandum was handed to the Press. No information was made available, and everyone had to guess what the intention was with this legislation. Therefore, if the Minister now deplores the fact that there were mistakes, it is the result of the particular treatment this Bill got at its publication. In speaking about these points, I want to praise the Department for the fact that the Bill was announced beforehand. I think the hon. the Minister himself will be the first person to admit that various improvements were effected because of the fact that the legislation received publicity. It has given rise to the fact that we are dealing with legislation today which is better than it was at the time it was announced. Unfortunately this is not good enough yet, as has been indicated by this side of the House.

This brings me to a few comments I wish to make on the merits of this Bill. My friend the hon. member for Transkei very effectively pointed out the objections we have in principle against this Bill. I just want to emphasize two objections of this side of the House against this Bill. I shall not touch upon the others. In the first instance I just want to emphasize that it contains a tax principle which we cannot accept, a principle to the effect that there is only a ceiling on the tax that may be levied, but no detailed explanation has been given as to precisely what may be levied. This is completely at variance with the approach shown by all the Ministers of Finance in respect of taxation in general, and we cannot see why this should be different now. In the past we dealt with levies that were fixed, and if it was possible to depart from them, we knew far more accurately where we stood than is the case at present.

But, surely, the hon. member knows these levies have been laid down, too. One may not charge more than a certain amount.

No, but this is the kind of tax principle which will be quite inadmissible when it comes to the general Budget. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister owes it to the House to determine the financial requirements of the Department far more precisely and to tell beforehand what they want. It is important that a watchful eye should be kept on the expenditure now incurred. As the Bill reads at present, it will be impossible to keep a watchful eye, and it will be very difficult for us to learn precisely what has happened to the money and what things have been done with it.

The second point I want to emphasize too, is the possibility that money collected in a certain city or place may be spent at quite a different place. The hon. the Deputy Minister said this could be done by way of a donation by the local authority. That is how I understood him. This sounds all very well, but in practice it does not work out so well. The local authorities of the various cities are now going to be replaced by the Bantu administration boards. These Bantu administration boards are now going to become local authorities. We know only too well that these Bantu administration boards are dominated by the Government, i.e. the local authorities, as the Act reads, include these Bantu administration boards, and therefore it is only the Government in a different guise which is going to exercise control over these so-called donations. Say, for example, a city such as Cape Town collects money for this purpose. In Cape Town there are no Bantu who come from the homelands daily to work here, but if a Bantu administration board has been established for the Cape Town area, the Government will have the biggest say on such a board, and the board will then be able to make a donation for purposes with which we may not agree at all. As has been stated clearly by hon. members on this side of the House, we support the development of the reserves just as much as hon. members opposite do. We believe our policy will ensure that in a much cheaper way they will eventually be developed far more effectively. We say it is a wrong principle that money from these sources may in such a way, by Government resolution, be transferred to entirely different areas.

What policy of yours?

Our policy of the utilization of money from private entrepreneurs for creating employment in the Bantu reserves, will be far cheaper for the country than to do so by means of money which comes from the taxpayer.

I want to conclude by just emphasizing that it appears from this legislation, and particularly from the speech made by the hon. the Deputy Minister, that that side of the House has again adjusted its Bantu policy. As far as we are concerned, this points to an improvement. The other day we heard that family life was going to be promoted by that side of the House. In their new approach to the amenities for the urban Bantu, that side of the House has once again revealed a new approach. This confirms the impression that they have accepted that the urban Bantu now form a permanent part of our population. In conclusion I just want to say that we hope that they will realize, accordingly, the implications of the major shift that has taken place in their policy.

Mr. Speaker, I am very sorry the Opposition are trying to make something out of this matter which is not in actual fact happening. What is the Opposition trying to make people believe here? They are insinuating that a brand new principle is being introduced here, i.e. that by way of this legislation and by means of the consolidation of the various levies which are being imposed, a tax is being levied. But surely that is not the case. No new principle is being introduced by means of this legislation. The preamble to this Amendment Bill states very clearly that this is a consolidation of all the various fees which are being levied today. Let me now try to put this in a very simple way and see whether they can perhaps understand it. Various fees are being levied today, labour bureau fees, registration fees and a levy on services are being imposed. Besides these there are two others, i.e. licence fees and transport service levies. These are the five levies which are being imposed today.

What is now being requested here is that the labour bureau fees, the registration fees and the service levies should be consolidated into one levy. The other two, licence fees and transport service fees, are being omitted. There is a very good reason for that, which I shall try to explain to hon. members. Licence fees are being omitted and are not being consolidated for the simple reason that licence fees are for licences taken out by people to enable them to accommodate Bantu servants in their back yards. The second, transport fees, cannot be included here for the simple reason that transport fees are administered by the Department of Transport, as the hon. members know. There is an amendment Bill on the Order Paper in respect of the Transport Act so that the transport fees may be amended. We shall have this before us shortly. These are thus the only two which are being omitted. What hon. members are saying here, i.e. that a new principle is being introduced here, creates the impression outside—even if it is not intended to do so—that the United Party are deliberately trying to stir up feelings outside in regard to this legislation. What we have before us is a simple, innocent consolidation Bill.

What has happened to the United Party? They have once again been taken in tow by the Rand Daily Mail and the Financial Times which have lost their heads and are trying to make everyone believe that an amendment is going to be introduced which is going to impose additional taxes on the employers.

What about the Sunday Times?

Well then, let me add the Sunday Times as well. The hon. the Deputy Minister made it very clear in his Second Reading speech that the maximum levy will be R2,50.

That is very high.

That is a ceiling levy. When this consolidated levy is imposed, consultation will take place in exactly the same way as it did before this measure was introduced here. The provisions of this Bill were discussed very thoroughly and carefully with all the interested employer associations in this country. Discussions were held with the Federated Chambers of Industries the Federated Chambers of Commerce, and with the Handelsinstituut.

They do not like it.

This hon. Opposition does not know what it is talking about. Can the hon. member for Pinelands say with justification that what he has just said here reflects what organized commerce and industry honestly feel about this matter? Do they feel they do not like this legislation?

What are your feelings?

No, wait a minute! The hon. member for Pinelands …

They do not like the heavy tax.

What tax? Is the hon. member for Pinelands now implying that organized commerce and industry is just as stupid as the hon. Opposition and that they see in this levy a tax? Surely this is not a tax. It is a levy which they are also paying today.

No, it is not; it is more.

It is not more. The hon. member for North Rand has not done his homework either. This levy is no tax. This amount of R2,50 is a ceiling. There is room for movement between this ceiling and the floor. When that levy is determined proper consultations will be held with the various organizations that will be involved in this matter. The Minister does not have the power to determine the levy just like that. It would be unwise of any government to do so. Proper consultations must first take place about the amount which will eventually be determined upon.

This is the “dialogue” now. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member must continue with his speech and must not react to all the interjections.

I shall not do it again, Sir. This is a simple provision and for hon. members on the opposite side to see other things in it is quite wrong. They are merely trying to drag in a red herring here. They are putting words in the mouth of organized commerce and industry which they do not confirm. I am convinced that these people know what is contained in this measure and that they are satisfied with it. I have also discussed this matter with these people. They expressed their misgivings about this ceiling levy of R2,50. However, the matter was discussed with them. They are today quite satisfied that they will be consulted when that levy is determined. It will be done. But the United Party, through the hon. members for Jeppes and Pietermaritzburg District, is adopting an attitude here which will result in no one ever attaching any value to any standpoint they adopt here in future. They no longer have their ears to the ground. They do not know what the people outside are thinking. I think that organized commerce and industry, as a result of the Opposition’s attitude today, must write off this Opposition completely. They mean absolutely nothing to them.

I want to reply to a few other questions, which are very important. I am sorry the hon. member for Transkei is not present at the moment. He said that I should reveal what is going to happen to vocational training and where vocational training is going to take place. Is it going to take place in the locations in the White areas, or where? The policy of this party has been clearly and distinctly stated and there need be no misunderstanding in regard to it. The vocational training of these people takes place within their own homelands. There are reasons for that, inter alia, because we are establishing all the facilities for them there, and also because we want these trained artisans to be used in the homelands as well for the development of industries in the homelands.

Will they also be able to work in the White areas?

I should like to reply to that question, and I hope the hon. member will understand it now. If those people make application through the labour bureaux, and there is a surplus of labour in the homelands of artisans of that kind, they will be able to come and work in the White areas as well.

Who benefits from that? The industrialist.

The people who benefit from this provision are the industrialists.

May I ask a question?

Yes, but then you must not ask a silly question.

Why cannot the children of the families who are now going to be allowed into White areas, according to National Party policy, be trained in the places in which they grew up?

I just want the hon. member to understand something quite clearly. He also tried to insinuate in his speech that we have changed and adjusted our policy on a large scale. That is not true.

What about the children of …

Order!

That is not true. Surely the hon. member knows it. All the Minister said was that it was a concession which was being made to certain of these section 10 Bantu who are living in the Bantu locations in the White areas.

What about the children?

The children who are born there will, according to the policy of the National Party, receive their education in the vocational schools which are being established for them in the Bantu homelands. That is the vocational training referred to by the hon. member for Transkei. He spoke about vocational training. I am very sorry he is not present here at the moment. He will just have to read it up.

You are running away now.

No, Sir, we are not running away from anything. We are carrying our policy through in a logical way. Actually, the principal aim of this measure is that we are now removing the control of Bantu administration from the local authorities and transferring it to the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards. Since the previous session I have been working on the delimitation of these Bantu Affairs Administration Board areas, and I think that this legislation is absolutely essential, so that the collection of these various fees can be made as easy and as simple as possible for the Administration Boards. That is why this legislation is generally accepted by these people who will have a say in and control over the new Administration Boards. I really welcome it. Hon. members on the opposite side are making a great fuss about how these funds are going to be spent and who is going to have a say in regard to them. Sir, this is the first time in the history of South Africa, as far as the administration of Bantu in White areas is concerned, that you are going to have a representative body which will have control over the spending of funds for that purpose. Who are the people who are going to serve on those boards? Who are the people who are in fact going to have an equal say in this regard? The people who are going to serve on those boards are going to be representatives of the local authorities; they are going to be representatives of commerce, of industries and of organized agriculture; those are the people who are going to sit on those boards; those are the people who will have to administer these funds.

And they are experts on Bantu affairs.

These various organizations know a great deal more about Bantu administration and about the control of Bantu labour than any hon. member on that side. The Opposition is making itself ridiculous in the eyes of the world by advancing this childish, ridiculous argument which they advanced here today in regard to this Bill. As I have said, those are the people who are now going to have control over the spending of these funds. Who are the people who exercised control in the past? It was the local authorities. They are the people who had a say in the spending of these funds—elected people.

Elected representatives of the people.

Does the hon. member want to tell me that the representative of a local authority who is now going to sit on this board will not be elected? Surely he is still an elected member; he is still an elected representative of the people. But what right does that elected representative of a local authority have to have more say over those matters than we here in this House as the central Government? Do hon. members on that side want to make this Parliament subservient to local authorities?

What control will we have?

We will have full control over this matter, as laid down in the Act last year.

Where?

Mr. Speaker will not allow me to discuss the provisions of that Act now.

Order! We cannot conduct a debate in this manner; it is impossible. The hon. member must continue with his speech; he must not take any notice of interjections.

Sir, I shall gladly comply with your request. Hon. members must not try to make a political issue out of this Bill. There is no politics in this.

The hon. member also referred here to Dr. Verwoerd’s promise that the levies …

Tax.

No. What tax?

Order! The hon. member must continue with his speech.

The hon. member for Transkei was sitting in this House when the Bantu Services Levy Act was piloted through here, and he knows that there is no provision in this Bill which introduces any change whatever to the provisions of the Bantu Services Levy Act. Consequently this Parliament alone is empowered to change the provisions of the Levy Act, as it stands on the Statute Book today, and until such time as that is done by this Parliament, those funds will be utilized according to the provisions of that Act.

Hon. members must therefore not talk about promises made by Dr. Verwoerd. No changes are being made to the provisions of this Act. Those promises will be kept as faithfully as in the past.

I want to say that we welcome this consolidation Bill. The Bantu Administration Boards which are being established, will also welcome it. It is a move in the right direction to establish proper administration and to simplify the levying of these funds.

I have listened very carefully to what the hon. member who has just sat down said. What a wonderful Bill we would have in front of us if it reflected the speech of the hon. member, but with all due respect, Sir, may I say that the hon. member should be deeply grateful to you for telling him to get on with his speech just when he was faced with the responsibility of having to explain a difficult question that had been put to him from this side of the House. While he was fumbling, Sir, you quite rightly ordered him to continue with his speech. I want to deal with one or two of the points he raised before I come to the Bill itself. I think the hon. member should get a reply. He said that there was no new principle in this Bill. Sir, the new principle in this Bill is the point which the Deputy Minister, when he introduced the Bill this afternoon, continually came back to when he complained that the existing legislation limits the area in which expenditure can take place in respect of the proceeds of the employers’ tax, or contributions.

Yes, contributions, not tax.

No, I am coming to the tax. This is the tax, which we are dealing with now, but it was the employers’ contribution. The Deputy Minister and other hon. members referred several times to the difficulty that the objects on which the proceeds of this levy could be expended, were limited, were too circumscribed. Now there is no limit. It is only necessary for the Minister to say that in his opinion it is in the interests of the Bantu, and the money can be spent forthwith, and there is no appeal to the courts. There is no means of testing whether the Minister has applied his mind to the matter.

I will reply to you; that is not correct.

I am becoming quite tired of hearing the Deputy Minister tell us he will reply to this and he will reply to that. He made his speech. He had ample time and we asked him questions, and all he could say was: “I shall reply to it.” What is he doing? He is taking time off now to get the information from his Department, so that when he replies later on he will have that information available. Sir, he did not understand it; he does not know what the Bill is that we are dealing with. That is a time-honoured old Parliamentary trick. It is like the hon. member who has just sat down. When he is asked questions, what does he do? He repeats the question very, very slowly, while thinking what answer he can give to this question. So he repeats it. That is an old Parliamentary trick. Mr. Speaker, you and I have been here a long time. We know that when a member is caught off balance by a question put by the other side, and a reply is expected quickly, the way to gain time to think it over so as to be able to give a reply which may pass muster is to repeat the question, very slowly and seriously, and with due regard to all the points raised.

What are you doing now?

I am not answering questions. The hon. member said there was no new principle. I told him what the principle was. It is the principle of the limitless power of the Minister, an individual, a principle where the Minister can even through caprice spend that money. He is completely untrammelled. If he has a peculiar neurosis he can spend the money according to that. Sir, may I say to you also, for the edification of the hon. member, that the credibility gap, so far as we are concerned on this side of the House and as far as South Africa is concerned, has stretched so wide that any assurances which are merely given in debates will be looked at with the very greatest suspicion at the present time. We want it in the Bill. The hon. member who has just sat down, referred to the assurances given by the hon. the Deputy Minister. What assurances? He said that he gave these assurances in this debate and that they were a reply to the criticism which came from the newspapers. He does not say whether the prognostications of the newspapers are wrong. He said that in his opinion that would not happen. That is not the point. The point is whether the Bill permits it. Were the newspapers entitled on the evidence of what is here in black and white before us, to come to that conclusion? The answer is: They were so entitled. It is no good either the hon. the Deputy Minister or the hon. member who has just sat down saying: It will not happen; the Minister will not act like that. What has the hon. the Deputy Minister said said in regard to those points that the cost to the employer is going to be that much greater? He has simply said: We do not want to keep on coming back to Parliament with a new Bill every time we want to raise the charges. However, they put a ceiling on the charges and what is there with this bigger credibility gap, as I say, to make us believe that the Deputy Minister and his Minister and the other Deputy Minister and the whole of the hegemony concerned, are not going to come forward with the highest possible level of charges to that ceiling? Nothing at all! We are suspicious of it and we say so.

When the hon. member who has just sat down referred to the pledge by the late Dr. Verwoerd—he is the only member who has referred to it—he said that the pledge still covered the expenditure of the money coming from the employers’ levy, we say that that is not the case. What is happening now is that the name of that levy is being changed. People who come after us will not be able to see that that is the levy in respect of which the pledge was given by the late Dr. Verwoerd. That levy produced in fact, if my hon. friend who spoke just now is correct, something like a surplus of R26 million. How did that surplus accrue? It accrued because the Minister and his department were bound by the law, which the Deputy Minister admitted. They could not spend that money on any of those matters which fell outside the four corners of the law. They will be able to do so when this Bill is passed.

And then they will have a picnic.

A teddy bear’s picnic.

Oh, Mr. Speaker, the sky is the limit and only the Minister’s will is what stands between raising the charges so as to raise the amount of revenue so as to have that additional amount for expenditure in those cases wherever the Minister wills.

I want to come to the Bill, to clause 2 where I think there is an important point. This clause provides—

This amount will be payable outside the Bantu homelands. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister where the homelands are defined in Natal and Zululand? Is it possible for the Minister to proclaim an area outside the Bantu homelands in Natal or Zululand?

We have argued that point under the Bantu Affairs Administration Bill for a long time.

No; it is easy for the hon. the Deputy Minister to say “yes” or “no”.

It relates to Eshowe and all those places. If the hon. member thinks that I am going to reply now, sitting in my bench, I can tell him that he makes a big mistake.

What a simple question! Here is the kernel of the Government’s Bantu policy—Bantu homelands. That is the kernel. I ask whether the Bantu homelands are defined in Natal and Zululand and I get a young speech from the hon. the Deputy Minister, but he does not tell me whether or not they are defined.

It is a very young speech; a baby speech.

He knows that they have not been.

Give him time to think out something. Will the hon. member repeat the question?

Yes, I am repeating the question because I cannot get an answer from the hon. the Deputy Minister. It is as simple as that. No, the hon. the Deputy Minister knows perfectly well that they cannot proclaim a place in Natal or Zululand under this Bill when it becomes an Act, because the homelands are not defined, the homelands which they are now in the process of trying to manufacture are not homelands because there is no definition; they are nebulous, there are pieces all over the place and they are incapable of definition. Not only are they not defined; they are incapable of definition.

I think you have been pushed into this debate.

I did not expect that kind of remark from the hon. member who has just sat down; I expect it from a very young backbencher who has just come in here and who does not understand the courtesy which we extend to one another in Parliament. In the light of what has been said here about the three levies which have been amalgamated into this central tax, I just want to deal with the principles of this matter. The question arises in my mind why should only the employers pay this tax. Presumably the argument which was adduced at the time by the late Dr. Verwoerd when he imposed the Employers’ Tax, was that because the employers were getting the benefit of the Bantu labour they should pay that tax. It was limited in its scope and it was to provide certain amenities which were specified. So it was perfectly clear that the object was to let the employer pay for the benefit of having the Bantu, this certain tax, and for the proceeds to go to certain improvements in so far as the Bantu living conditions were concerned. Now we move right away from that and I do not think that can apply any longer, particularly when we see the amalgamation of these three levies into one tax. Therefore, I ask again, why does it only apply to the employers? The Bantu who go into the towns are of immense importance to the commercial people in Natal. They are a vast purchasing body, a body of people who purchase from all sorts of undertakings in town. They help commerce tremendously and apart from the labour they provide, they help the industrialists tremendously, because they are the market to which so many industrialists sell their manufactured goods. In other words, the whole community is benefiting from that. I hear from a pretty good authority that the sudden exodus of a large number of workers to their homelands, has in a certain area of our country, hit the trading community very hard indeed. The economy of those areas, I understand, is suffering very badly. The persons who suffer are the traders, the storekeepers and generally the trading community. I repeat that it just goes to show that we still have only one economy in South Africa to which we all contribute. Where this tax is concerned, it is being levied in a discriminatory manner against employers. That is one of the first points we want to make. It is a discriminatory tax which is levied against one group of people, the employers of Bantus, because the employers of the Indian people, the employers of the Coloureds and the employers of the Whites do not have to pay such a tax. The employer is not the only beneficiary; the communities at large in our urban areas are all beneficiaries from having that Bantu labour in their areas. They benefit from it in so many different ways that I do not want to go into here. For that reason I say that this measure is unreasonable, it is selective and it is discriminatory against one group of the population. But not only is it discriminatory, it can also choose between employer and employer. It can choose between one employer and another in the same area and it can choose between one employer and another employer who is engaged in precisely same kind of occupation in a different area. The hon. the Deputy Minister is neither shaking his head, nor nodding it, nor wagging it, because this is what he has said himself this afternoon when he introduced this Bill. He pointed this out as a measure of excellence, but I say it is the most damnable feature of this legislation before us. The most damnable feature to my mind is that the Minister, who for all practical purposes will have complete control of the taxing machine—the taxing machine will be in the hands of one man, the hon. Minister—will have the right to discriminate throughout the length and the breadth of our country, to discriminate between two different employers who are engaged in precisely the same kind of occupation. He will have the power to levy a tax of a certain magnitude here and of a different magnitude there, and if those employers happen to be in other areas, he can again discriminate between employers in the specified areas and employers in the other areas.

Are you arguing that the principle of differentiation has not existed up to now?

I am dealing with the Bill before us and I say that it provides for a selective tax which discriminates and differentiates between one employer and another. Furthermore, it discriminates between area and area.

That principle has been embodied all along.

The hon. Deputy Minister is merely saying that I am right. That is what is in this Bill, and this is one of the major points to which we object. Firstly, they select only employers and I have pointed out how the discrimination will take place. Mr. Speaker, I take it that the housewives of Brakpan, for example, will be told that no tax will be levied on their domestic servants. However, they can levy a tax on the domestic servants employed in Benoni.

Or Langlaagte.

Yes, or Langlaagte or even Randburg. They have agreed to leave the domestic servants there, so they may as well tax them.

I now want to come to this question of the tax. Apparently, for some reason or another, hon. members opposite have found themselves facing a very ticklish position. They seem to be very sensitive about this question of the tax. Of course, it is a tax. I still believe that the estimate of the hon. member for Jeppes, that this tax can easily amount to R100 million per annum, is right. It has long been an established principle in regard to taxation in South Africa that as far as possible it shall be simple and easily collected. A cardinal principle, not only in South Africa, but with all the governments which are based upon a parliamentary form of government, is that Parliament shall vote supply; Parliament shall control the taxation; it shall approve the tax. It shall approve the expenditure of the proceeds of the tax annually. In this particular Bill that we have before us this afternoon, approval is not sought for a principle of a tax, but for a principle whereby a Minister, after having created what I call the Baab’s, the Bantu Affairs Administration Boards … When he has created a Baab he has complete control over it. Thereafter, as the money comes in for whatever the purpose may be, it may be handed over to another body for expenditure. Hon. members opposite say that if such money is handed over to a body in another area for expenditure, it will be a gift, a donation. Mr. Speaker, how easy it is to make a donation when the money you give away does not belong to you! What a hard thing it is though when the money comes out of your own pocket!

When you get home tonight, please read clause 4(2) of the Bill. Then you will understand something of it.

I have read it. I have probably given it more consideration than the hon. the Deputy Minister.

Just do me the favour and read clause 4(2) aloud to the House.

I am not reading my speech that has been written for me by my officials like that hon. Deputy Minister did.

You will do better if you get someone to write your speech for you.

The position is that here we have taxation proposals, the proceeds of which can amount to R100 million. The Government, pursuant to its now avowed policy of bettering the position in the homelands, of spending large sums of money, will not be spending money obtained from the proceeds of taxation. They won’t come to Parliament and say that they are going to levy taxation. We are all benefiting from the presence of Bantu in our towns. We are not only benefiting from their labour, but also in so many other ways, because they are contributing to the economy of South Africa in exactly the same way as any other citizen in this country, directly and indirectly. If we want to levy a tax on the people of South Africa, it will go through the normal parliamentary procedure; it will be expended in such and such a manner and we can debate it here in this House. However, none of that happens in this case. We neither know the incidence of the tax nor on whom it will fall, except that it will be on a certain group. However, we do not have the faintest idea on which members of that group the incidence of the tax will fall. Within a certain ceiling we do not know the amount of the tax. We do not have the faintest idea. We would have thought that when the hon. the Deputy Minister came here, the first thing he would have said would have been: “We expect that this tax will produce such and such a sum of money in every full fiscal year.” However, he does not do that. When we ask him what the figure will be, he says that he will tell us by and by. He says that he has an estimate. His estimates are worthless because, if in 12 months’ time there is a need for more money, he has already indicated that the charges will be raised without coming to Parliament. The hon. the Minister says that they have placed a high ceiling to avoid coming to Parliament. What kind of democratic government is this where R100 million can be taken out of the pockets of the taxpayer of one class, namely the employers of Bantu only and not from the taxpayers of South Africa generally, and then be disposed of at the will, whim or wish of the Minister of Bantu Administration? Under the Bill we have before us, and the associated measures, that is precisely the position we have reached today. We on this side of the House say that that is not the way to deal with taxation in this country and that the Government should come here with a measure explaining precisely what the tax is, what it is for and how it is going to be expended. We say that it should go through the proper parliamentary procedure in the same way that other taxation measures do.

Before I sit down, may I say that I think the hon. the Deputy Minister missed something in that he did not sit here with the late Mr. Klasie Havenga. I remember the late Mr. Klasie Havenga as Minister of Finance sitting over there and on one famous occasion, when legislation of this kind was coming forward, actually getting up in this House and saying to hon. members on his side that he had now heard what had been said on both sides and wondered whether it was wise to proceed with that measure. His reasons for saying that was that one should bear in mind that one day there would be a United Party Minister of Finance and a United Party Minister of Bantu Administration who would be administering this law. Consequently, he asked if they were being wise in proceeding with that legislation. So, today, I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that there will be a United Party Minister of Bantu Administration administering this law one day. Sir, would it therefore be wise to proceed with this?

Mr. Speaker, I have listened attentively to the hon. member for Natal South Coast. I must say that to my mind that hon. member as well as those hon. members who preceded him, did not treat the hon. the Deputy Minister well, right and fairly. I do not think hon. members of the Opposition, of whom there have been five speakers so far, have really expressed any substantial criticism on the Second Reading debate of the hon. the Deputy Minister. I think the previous speaker in particular was unfair in his approach to the hon. the Deputy Minister in the sense that it was taken amiss of the hon. the Deputy Minister when he interjected that he would reply in due course to the questions put to him by hon. members opposite. I think in many ways it has become the attitude of hon. members of the Opposition to become personal with the hon. the Minister when they cannot really come forward with substantial criticism of Ministers of this side of the House. Mr. Speaker, I think you will permit me to say that although the hon. the Deputy Minister who introduced this Bill is still a young man, he is a capable Deputy Minister, and that in his job he is most conversant with these matters. I think one ought to tell both the public outside and, in particular, the Bantu with whom the hon. the Deputy Minister has to work, that he is a person who does not only have a thorough, scientific knowledge of the Bantu, but that he also knows all the basic principles of his subject. For that very reason he is competent to deal with this particular legislation.

However, that was not the only thing that has happened tonight. Members of the Opposition also tried to play off the hon. the Minister of Community Development against the hon. the Deputy Minister. They also suggested here that during the time the hon. the Minister of Community Development was a Deputy Minister, he had no Christian heart, no kind or sympathetic heart for those Bantu living in White areas. That is unfair and untrue. I think that if there is one Minister who has had a very sympathetic heart for the Bantu in the White areas, it is the present Minister of Community Development. We cannot allow the remarks made by quite a number of the hon. members on the opposite side to pass simply unchallenged. The hon. members of the Opposition made a big fuss in suggesting that we were allegedly once again granting those so-called dictatorial powers to the Minister. Just as that accusation they also made in the past was unfair, so it is tonight too. They say that the levy funds which will be imposed in terms of this Bill, will not come under the scrutiny of this Parliament at any time. That is not true, because the Vote of the Minister concerned is dealt with here every year. The accounts of the Bantu administration boards are duly audited so that the funds collected by them will not simply vanish into nothingness. This House as well as other bodies will most certainly gain an insight into the administration of those funds.

The hon. member for South Coast made the statement that this legislation would have the effect of discriminating against those employers who will employ Bantu labourers. He then asked: What about those employers who employ Coloureds and Indians? That is the basic flaw in the premise of hon. members opposite, i.e. they want to see the entire South African society as one integrated whole. They do not have any thorough knowledge of the background and the reason why the Bantu are placed in this particular relationship to the White employers. The way in which the Bantu are placed in their position as employers as against the Whites, is historically quite different from what it was in respect of the Coloureds or what it was in respect of the Indians. We are dealing with a variety of communities, when one is dealing with the Bantu on the one hand, and, on the other hand, when one is dealing with the Coloureds or with the Indians. That is why the arrangements made between the White employer and the Bantu on the one hand, and those between the Coloureds and the Indians on the other hand, will from the nature of the case be different. Therefore I think it it was entirely because of a misconception that the hon. member for South Coast made such a statement. After one has listened to the arguments advanced by the hon. Opposition, it is very clear that they really have no clarity as to the contents of this particular legislation. They have no clarity in this regard because they themselves have no clarity as to how they are going to deal with the Bantu in the White areas. The Opposition proceeds from the premise that the Government is not at all sympathetically disposed to the Bantu in White areas. Last week we also had these arguments from the other side. The National Party’s premise in dealing with Bantu affairs has always been based on Christian guardianship. We have said so all these years.

Where do you get that from?

I think the hon. member should be very glad that my name is not Bernadette and that my surname is not Devlin, for if he passes such a remark and suggests by it that in the year 1972 he still does not know that the basis of the National Party’s policy in respect of the Bantu community is that of Christian guardianship, then I do not know how old that hon. member will have to be before he understands it. I want to make this matter very clear. All the years the National Party has made it very clear in its standpoint on the Bantu in White areas that it is aware that there is a diversity of people and that these people came to the White areas because they wanted to sell their labour to the Whites, that the Whites will take the necessary precautionary measures for them so that, as long as the Bantu are a labour factor in the White areas, provision will be made for them to make a decent living. We have always adopted that standpoint. It is therefore not a foreign standpoint. No new principle is being introduced by this legislation introduced by the National Party or the announcements made by the hon. the Deputy Minister last week. Nor is there any change of policy. Hon. members fail to see that every measure in the National Party’s programme of Bantu legislation forms part of an integrated whole of legislation on the handling of Bantu affairs. Therefore it is unfair for that side of the House to say that in its treatment of the Bantu in the White areas in its legislation, the National Party is inhuman and unchristianlike. I want to remind hon. members of the fact that if it had not been for the National Party and its legislation, the world would rightly have had the opportunity and the right to say that the Bantu in White areas were being discriminated against.

Order! Yes, but the hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Gladly, Sir; it is just that one is tempted by the Opposition to digress. I just want to express a few thoughts on clause 4 (3), which reads—

Sir, you will notice that we have chosen our words very carefully in this particular clause. To be specific, we say that these moneys will be utilised for any service, expenditure or grant in respect of which the Minister certifies in writing that it is in the interests of Bantu. The United Party thinks that a certain number of Bantu are living in the White areas, as though they have been completely cut off, so to speak, from those Bantu living in the homelands. But, also in this particular clause, we are very clear about the fact that moneys collected in this way will be made available to the Bantu within their national context. That national context of the Bantu is not confined to the so-called “urban complexes”. The ties between the Bantu in the White areas and those in the homelands are given permanence and developed. I just want to mention an example here.

Now the story will come out.

It is a misconception on the part of the hon. Opposition to adopt the standpoint that, if some of the descendants of an Afrikaner had moved to the city sixty years ago and the others had remained in the country districts, one could say now that the Afrikaner living in the country districts are no longer Afrikaners and no longer have any ties with the Afrikaners living in the city. As far as the Bantu are concerned, the position is precisely the same. The fact that we want to allocate these moneys to the Bantu within their national context and that some of those Bantu are living in White areas whilst others are living in the homelands, does not give one the right to say that these people have to be separated on those grounds. We want to utilize these moneys in the full national context.

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