Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House and with the knowledge of the hon. the Minister, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of Police—

1. (1) Whether he is aware of an incident involving the South African Police and certain demonstrators on Friday afternoon, 2nd June, outside St. George’s Cathedral, Cape Town; and
2. (2) whether he will make a statement in regard to the matter?

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the events that took place there, and I should like to inform the House as follows: Hon. members will appreciate, of course, that as criminal proceedings arising from these events are pending at the moment, I cannot say anything which will in any way affect the merits of the case. In broad outline it appears that the following related incidents occurred: On Thursday, 1st June, a number of students of the University of Cape Town held a demonstration outside this House in Parliament Street, which led to a number of them being arrested. They will be tried before long. As far as could be ascertained, six members of this group come from abroad and are ostensibly here to study. I shall furnish you with their names and particulars, Sir, The first of them is Christopher David McQuaid; he is 19 years old and was born in Northern Ireland. Then there is Peter Ronald Bennett; he is 22 years old and was born in Sheffield, England. Then there is Michael Edwin Vernon Hubbard; he is 24 years old and was born in Jersey in the United Kingdom. Then there is Lucille Keril, a woman; she is 20 years old and is a Rhodesian citizen. Then there is Leslie Foulds, another woman; she is 19 years old, a resident of Zambia and a British subject. Then there is Cyril Couve, who is 24 years old and was born in Mauritius. He is a British subject, too. They are people who came to this country as guests and who are enjoying the hospitality of South Africa. What is more, the taxpayers of South Africa have to contribute to the cost of allowing them to study at our universities, and instead of availing themselves of those privileges, they have come here to concern themselves with unlawful, leftist activities. They will receive the necessary attention from the Government.

On Friday afternoon, 2nd June, students of the same university held a meeting in the Jameson Hall, and according to my information a minority group—and I emphasize this—promised their support to a proposal for a demonstration on the steps of the St. George’s Cathedral. This group went to the Hiddingh Hall in Cape Town, from where they moved to the Cathedral in small groups and took up positions here on the steps outside the Cathedral from approximately 2 p.m. onwards. Posters bearing seditious slogans were displayed. Pamphlets were distributed left, right and centre, and before long a large number of people had congregated, thus disrupting traffic. A number of policemen under the command of senior officers went to the scene in order to maintain law and order, whilst other members of the Force were standing by near the Houses of Parliament. The behaviour of the students was provocative throughout, although initially they were careful not to commit offences. As could be expected, the so-called freedom song, “We Shall Overcome”, was sung time and again, and apparently, to create a semblance of propriety, they also sang the South African National Anthem, with less enthusiasm and more uncertainty. Round about 3.40 p.m. one of the students, a certain Robert Dirk Kemp, who was born on 6th September, 1952, in Sheffield, England, and who is a British subject, started addressing those present by means of a portable loudhailer, called a megaphone. The so-called peaceful demonstration then became a public meeting. When it was pointed out to the speaker by the officer in charge that he was committing an offence by doing so, he continued in a provocative manner. Thereupon the officer informed him that he was arresting him in that case, and he took him by the arm. The student resisted and at the same time the officer was struck from the rear whilst others held and prevented him from taking away the student with the megaphone and thus performing his duty. At that point a commotion developed amongst the demonstrators and bystanders. Girls shrieked and screamed hysterically and disorder resulted. This chain of events was the proverbial match in the powder-keg, and the Police were obliged to resort to action. In this process the Police made use of batons in order to disperse the demonstrating students. In this confusion some of the students and apparently some of the bystanders and Pressmen as well, who had got among the crowd, were injured slightly. I want to express my regret to those persons who can be described as innocent onlookers and who sustained injuries while action was being taken by the Police. However, they will realize that in view of the appearance of young people nowadays it was not possible for the Police to be able to distinguish at all times between those who were rioting and those who were inquisitive. People who do not identify themselves with those indulging in subversion, should rather see to it that they stay out of the way. In the same way I want to express my regret to members of the Press who also had the misfortune of being injured. If they land in the mêlée, they as reasonable people may certainly not expect every policeman to know each of them personally. Five persons were arrested there, and a certain Kemp, who made the speech, and who escaped at first, was also arrested later that evening. However, everybody was released on bail. The accused will probably be tried in due course, and those who are of the opinion that they were unlawfully assaulted by the Police, are free to lay their charges before the Police in the normal manner.

Sir, over the past week-end many reports on these events appeared in local newspapers. By way of supplementing what I have said here, I just want to refer to a report published in The Cape Times this morning. A lady, who was obviously an eye-witness, telephoned The Cape Times and gave her version of what had happened there. I shall read only a few paragraphs from this report, and I want to express my appreciation at the fact that in spite of its reporting of Saturday morning, The Cape Times nevertheless placed this report. She said, inter alia—

You must listen attentively, Helen.

Continuing, she said—

Then she went on to say—

Sir, regarding the general public, I think there is no doubt that the public want order to be maintained. I want to read out to you, Sir, just two of the numerous telegrams I received this morning. The first one reads as follows—

The second telegram reads as follows (translation)—

Numerous similar telegrams reached me this morning and, presumably, other hon. members of this House too.

Mr. Speaker, because we know what is going on and what can be expected, not only in Cape Town but also in other places, it goes without saying that the closest consultation exists between me and the Commissioner of the South African Police, and from the nature of the case the Police made preparations for coping with any possibility of lawlessness. Hence the fact that the Police made use of rubber batons instead of conventional wooden batons. After all, the latter, i.e. the wooden batons, are dangerous and could have caused grievous bodily harm. My express instructions were that if the Police had to take steps to maintain order, rubber batons were to be used. Sir, the public should, what is more, not allow themselves to be misled by the claim that such demonstrations originate spontaneously from the ranks of the students, and that the majority of them are in favour of them. True to the communist pattern, it is in fact the minority who want their standpoint to prevail at all costs, and who raise the cry of so-called “student power” in an attempt to change the established and traditional way of life of a country. They are engaged in a process of softening up the youth and even the public.

However, there are a few further comments I cannot refrain from making. The public should not allow itself to be led to believe that this episode was an innocent, peaceful demonstration. We are aware of the disturbances of the past few weeks on certain campuses and of the leftist political undercurrents. I shall refer briefly to what the conditions were at several campuses before this incident took place. Apparently the present student unrest has its origin in the suspension of the Bantu student, Abram Tiro, from the University of the North on 29th April, 1972. This gave rise to other students of that institution starting to boycott classes and make demands. What followed on that, is known already. Pursuant to these events signs of unrest also manifested themselves on other non-White campuses and at certain White universities.

At the Indian University College, Durban-Westville, a mass of meetings were held, meetings which were originally concerned with domestic affairs, but subsequently degenerated into a political agitation about so-called suppression, no franchise, poverty, etc. Subsequent to that a motion condemning the “high-handed expulsion” of Tiro from Turfloop was adopted. On 29th May approximately 100 students met on the sports grounds, where speeches made by, inter alia, Tiro were read out and “We Shall Overcome” was sung. At the Springfield Teachers’ Training College for non-Whites lectures were boycotted in sympathy with the students of Turfloop. At the University of Zululand, too, there were boycotts of lectures, processions on the campus and speeches by certain ringleaders. On 22nd May, 1972. a commotion was also started amongst the students at the University of Fort Hare when approximately 300 students congregated in front of the administrative offices in order to see the rector. They put certain demands to the rector, and when their demands were not complied with, the vast majority of the students stayed away from lectures. Post demonstrations were held in front of the administrative block, and class boycotts are still in progress there. At the non-White medical faculty of the University of Natal in Durban, particularly in the Allen Taylor hostel, where the nucleus of SASO, a non-White student organization, is to be found, it was decided on 31st May, 1972, to boycott lectures as from today.

Of course SASO is to a large extent behind the unrest amongst the non-White students, and irrespective of how minor a grievance was, it was blown up to something unheard of. Although SASO had already intimated that it was an exclusively Black organization. Nusas did everything in its power in an attempt to retain the favour of the non-White students as well. In the midst of the disturbances as a result of the expulsion of Tiro and other trivial bottlenecks at non-White universities, Nusas promised its unqualified support to SASO in an attempt to enhance its prestige amongst Black students. At Rhodes University the position is as follows: At first there was very little response at this university. However, acting on the instructions of the president of Nusas the Rhodes Students Representative Council held a so-called emergency meeting on 3rd June, last Saturday, on which a unanimous motion condemning so-called Police brutality was adopted. On the same day pamphlets under the heading “Police brutality” were distributed in Grahamstown. Sir, now listen to this incident:

On 4th June, i.e. yesterday, students demonstrated in front of the Methodist Church. After the service at the church had ended, male students, dressed in grey raincoats of which the collars were turned up, wearing crash helmets with swastikas painted on them, and carrying sticks in their hands, rushed at female students in academic dress in the presence of school-children and threw them to the ground in a portrayal of the so-called Police brutality. On this occasion six students were charged with holding the demonstration without the approval of the local authority.

Here in Cape Town, pursuant to the Police action outside the St. George’s Cathedral last Friday, there were quite a number of disturbances at various universities, and here too. As could be expected, the Students Representative Council of the University of Cape Town feverishly set to work distributing thousands of pamphlets with the intention of rousing the feelings of the public of Cape Town about the so-called Police brutality and calling them up to a further demonstration on the same venue as was used last Friday. Pamphlets were cyclostyled in haste and distributed at cinemas and even at church services. I am going to read just one of the pamphlets that were distributed—

And this is followed again by the address, “St. George’s Cathedral, 1.15 p.m. on Monday, 5th June”. As I have said, this notice was distributed at cinemas and church services as far afield as Stellenbosch. The following notice was issued yesterday by the acting principal of the University of Cape Town, and I should like you to listen to it—

Sir, if this does not amount to spinelessness on the part of university authorities, then I do not know. I may mention in passing that the chairman of the council of the University of Cape Town knows me better than you do, Sir, and if he wants to solve problems concerning the Police, then surely the accepted procedure is to approach me and to discuss those problems with me.

As far as other White universities are concerned, a number of incidents occurred in the recent past, incidents of which cognizance must be taken. The Douglas Home incident, in connection with the student publication Wits Student, is one example of what has in certain circles simply been passed off as a student joke in bad taste, if there really are people who are so naïve as to believe that. Douglas Home had hardly left the country when Jeremy Thorpe paid us a visit in order to encourage the students further to discredit the existing order and subvert authority. He had hardly left when the hon. member for Houghton fanned the flames further at the so-called teach-in at the University of Witwatersrand.

Disgraceful!

You must get out of here and you will get out of here! We will put you out of here.

And so it goes on, day after day, with only one object in view, and that is the destruction of order and authority in South Africa. It follows that there are certain elements that have increasingly come into prominence with their systematic and subtle incitement of students to resist all forms of authority. One only needs to take a cursory look at the pamphlets distributed here in Cape Town on Friday afternoon to notice the similarity between them and the communist pamphlets distributed by the Congress of Democrats in the fifties. Just take a brief look at this pamphlet that was distributed here. I shall read a few paragraphs from it to you—

Just listen to this covert threat of revolution—

Not only the Government, but the majority of the people of South Africa who elect it, will not give in to these demands. In other words, what must happen? Not a democratic solution of the problem, but under the cover of the revolution they are striving after. This pamphlet goes on to say—

Mr. Speaker, it is also conspicuous that in these protests and demonstrations the young first-year students are pushed to the fore while the real agitators remain in the background. The president of Nusas, a certain Mr. Pretorius, was also on the steps outside the Cathedral, but in the background. As a so-called student leader it was not he who used the megaphone to deliver a speech. No, he left that part to a first-year student. Furthermore, women students are increasingly being pushed to the fore whenever action of this sort is taken, whilst the so-called student leaders hide behind those dirty, long dresses and coats of the women. The same pattern has manifested itself in South Africa before.

Why did they not use tear-gas?

Many people would probably say that the assault on the officer and his being prevented from arresting and taking away the ringleaders was such a minor incident that the action taken by the Police was unnecessary. No incident is too minor to have far-reaching consequences. Here I want to call the hon. member for Umlazi as a witness. He knows that the bloody riots in Durban in 1949, when large numbers of people died in cruel assaults, were caused by a very minor incident when an Indian slapped a Zulu. He will remember what happened after that, and that it took exceptionally firm action on the part of the Police to prevent the Zulus from butchering the entire Indian population or driving them into the sea.

As far as the students are concerned, I want to say that they are out to cause trouble. Their so-called grievances have nothing to do with their academic activities. Politically they are undeniably leftist-inspired. It is the established norms and practices which they want to destroy. Recently it has also become the fashion for certain organizations to continue their subversive activities under the cloak of religion. For instance, it has become the fashion for the students of Cape Town to rely on the so-called privacy of the steps of the St. George’s Cathedral and to take up position there. It appears that they obtained the consent of the church authorities concerned to demonstrate there. If this is true, the Police should not be accused of having no respect for such a consecrated building. If the church authorities allow premises which they deem to be consecrated to be used as a platform for people who are leftist and indulge in subversion, they themselves should bear the consequences that may result from such an act. I have no doubt in my mind that the Cathedral as such holds no semblance of sacredness for them. To them the church is merely a means to an end. The “brave ones” who fled before the Police into the Cathedral were, in addition to being fear-stricken, probably speechless with amazement at seeing what a place of worship looks like from the inside.

As Minister of Police it is my task to see to it that law and order are maintained and the laws of the country are obeyed. I want to emphasize once again, and sound a warning at the same time, that neither the Government, nor the Police, nor the public are going to allow certain student organizations to create a state of lawlessness and disorder in the Republic. The agitators behind the scenes who are indoctrinating the students are not only opposed to the Government of the day, but also against the whole political set-up, i.e. the official Opposition as well, because they believe that the change can only be brought about by force. I believe that prevention is better than cure. We must nip these disturbances in the bud before they degenerate into chaos and bloodshed. I shall purposefully try to do this. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, arising from the hon. Minister’s reply, may I ask him why no warning was given before a baton charge was carried out? [Interjections.]

You have no right to sit here. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, is the hon. member for Houghton entitled to say to the hon. member for Carletonville, “Go to hell”?

Did the hon. member say so?

Yes, Sir, but the hon. member …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said to me I have no right to be in this House.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Carletonville said to the hon. member for Houghton that she has no right to talk in this House when she asked her question. I submit that he must be rebuked.

Order! What did the hon. member for Carletonville say to the hon. member for Houghton?

Mr. Speaker, I honestly do not know what, because I said a great many things. [Interjections.]

No, if the hon. member does not know what his words were, he must withdraw them.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know which words I have to withdraw.

No, I am now asking the hon. member to withdraw those words.

You know what you have said.

Which words, Mr. Speaker?

Those which the hon. member used …

He is not even a man.

Order! If the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District makes another interjection, I shall ask him to leave the Chamber. I maintain order here, not the hon. member. Did the hon. member for Carletonville tell the hon. member for Houghton she had no right to speak in this House?

No, Mr. Speaker, I definitely did not say that.

That is untrue.

Order!

The hon. member said that I had no right to be here, that I represented nobody and he would see to it …

Order! The hon. member for Carletonville must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Select Committee on Public Accounts, 1972, recommended in its amended First Report for this year that an amount of R108 243-52 had to be regarded as unauthorized expenditure and that specific Parliamentary appropriation was required therefor.

This recommendation of the Committee concerned has already been accepted by this House and the object of this Bill is merely to obtain the necessary Parliamentary authority for the expenditure of the funds. Since full particulars of the circumstances which gave rise to the unauthorized expenditure have already been furnished in the annual report of the Controller and Auditor-General and in the report mentioned above, I do not want to take up more of the time of the House by enlarging upon the matter further.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In this Bill the House is requested to approve the appropriation of an amount of R11 743-42 for covering expenditure from the Post Office Fund which was declared unauthorized expenditure. Particulars of the expenditure and the reason why it was reported as unauthorized, appear in the Report of the Controller and Auditor-General on the Accounts of the Post Office for the financial year 1970-’71, which was tabled in this House. In its Third Report, agreed to by this House on 30th May, 1972, the Select Committee on Public Accounts recommended the specific appropriation of the amount. Therefore I do not consider it necessary to go into more detail.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, there are many reasons which could be adduced for indicating that this Government was unfit to rule South Africa, but I think there will be few stronger reasons adduced for that conclusion than the conduct of this Government in respect of the incident on the steps of the Cathedral last Friday … [Interjections.] … and its behaviour since then. We had an explanation this afternoon from the hon. the Minister of Police which glossed over most of the essential facts concerning this incident, which ignored the effect it had on the public of South Africa, which ignored, in addition, the disastrous effect upon South Africa in the outside world of what happened on that occasion.

No!

It is no good hon. members sitting over there and shouting “No”. They know very well that nothing has done South Africa so much harm as this performance by that hon. Minister’s Police on Friday. [Interjections.] We had a statement from the hon. the Minister on Saturday evening to the effect that the Police showed “great tolerance”. So seriously do I regard this situation that I believe it is my duty to call upon the hon. the Minister and upon the hon. the Prime Minister for a judicial inquiry as to what happened on Friday during the course of that incident and immediately afterwards.

That certainly will not take place.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Prime Minister says that that certainly will not take place. Is he afraid of the result of such an inquiry?

I am not prepared to waste anybody’s time. [Interjections.]

I suggest he is afraid of what that inquiry will reveal. [Interjections.] I want to say to the hon. gentleman it is no good reading me a long story of disturbances in various universities. I disapprove of them just as much as he does. There is no common cause as far as I am concerned with the sort of pamphlet that those students were giving out on Friday afternoon. This party dissociates itself entirely from those pamphlets. What we have had is this hon. Minister trying to tie this up with demonstrations at the non-White universities. I wonder if the hon. the Prime Minister remembers when they started on this business of separate universities for the non-Whites how we warned them that they will become seedbeds for Black nationalism in South Africa. Now he sees those warnings realized before his very eyes. What happened? I believe that on Friday we saw a confrontation between inexperienced demonstrators … [Interjections.] … probably incited and used by others for a purpose, who allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into breaking the law, and who found themselves confronted by an incompetent Government with a Police Force which, far from tolerant, turned out to be uncontrolled and manifestly untrained for the job it had to do. One of the most fundamental errors made was for the senior officer in charge to get himself involved in the crowd. I would say that it is one of the first principles of crowd control for a senior officer to remain outside the crowd and direct his inferiors as to what they should do. [Interjections.]

Do you want him to lead them from behind?

Like the hon. the Prime Minister, who just gives the orders. He must see that they are carried out. Whatever the demonstrators might have thought was the case, and whatever the call and suggestion was that this was a demonstration for free education for all, it is quite clear from this pamphlet that what was sought was not an educational concession, but a political and social revolution in South Africa. That is what the pamphlet wanted. I think it is right that certain portions of that pamphlet should be put on the records of this House. I therefore want to read certain of them out:

That is just the sort of story we saw in the disturbances at the universities in Europe. We on this side of the House dissociate ourselves absolutely from representations of that kind. We dissociate ourselves from the objectives of this pamphlet, possibly the objectives of the demonstration, but we are nevertheless prepared to fight for the right of freedom of speech and the freedom to have peaceful protests in South Africa. It is part of the democratic process which is part of our heritage, something we are determined to see maintained in South Africa. I would have thought that the fundamental issues, which I hoped the Minister would have dealt with, were firstly, why this protest gathering was allowed to continue for so long if possible trouble was anticipated. Those students were on the steps for over two hours. These young people were cooped up; did they really expect it to go on indefinitely without something happening, if they were afraid of some dangerous situation developing? I think the second question that we have to ask is whether ordering a baton charge was justified in those circumstances. I think the third thing we have to ask ourselves is whether any more force was used than was necessary to break up the meeting and clear the steps. Those are the three issues. First of all, one must ask oneself: Was the gathering lawful or unlawful originally? Our suggestion is that the Police officer in charge indicated that the gathering was lawful as long as they remained on the steps. The suggestion is that those steps are private property. I wonder whether those steps are private property for the purposes of the Riotous Assemblies Act; because the definition in that Act is so wide that I have no doubt in my own mind that those steps are not private property for the purposes of the use of that Act. Those steps are a place to which the public regularly has access. They are so close to the street and are used for such purposes that I do not believe they can be regarded as private property for the purposes of the application of the Act. One wonders why then that gathering was allowed to continue. The position seems to be that it was thought that the gathering became unlawful and contravened certain municipal regulations when a loud-hailer was made use of. Surely there were many ways of dealing with that situation otherwise than calling for a baton charge. There are many ways in which that sort of thing is being dealt with in many other countries of the world. There are many ways in which Police accustomed to crowd and riot control know how to defuse the situation and maintain law and order.

What happened, Sir? Instead of sending someone in to deal with the situation, the senior officer in charge himself went into the crowd, became surrounded by them and, to an extent, was cut off from his own men. The question is: Was his authority flouted? Photographs that have been published would seem to indicate that the student Kemp was about to hand the loud-hailer to Col. Crous to explain why he was not allowed to use it …

Oh, please!

It is no good saying “Oh, please!” These gentlemen were not there. I am speaking on the evidence of members of my own party who were down there. [Interjections.] But apart from that, I have taken the trouble to get eye-witness accounts of what happened … [Interjections.]… from people who were right in front of Col. Crous at the time. Anyone who examines those photographs will see that the situation indicated that at no time was Col. Crous in real difficulty. Now comes the interesting question. Col. Crous apparently made a statement to Die Burger. Die Burger was asked not to publish it. By whom, Mr. Speaker? Die Burger said on the very highest authority they had been asked not to publish it, but they thought it so much in the public interest that they did publish it.

So what?

I would like to know who tried to suppress that statement.

Then comes the next question. Who ordered that baton charge, and why? The first statement was from Col. Crous, that he was struck from behind and that he said: “Clear these steps.” But Brig. Lamprecht, who is a brigadier in the C.I.D., from all accounts was on the Parliament side of where Col. Crous was standing, and was on the pavement. He had very little chance of seeing what was happening. He claimed that he ordered it. But, Sir, the interesting thing is that when he was interviewed on the spot while the disturbance was taking place, he made no reference whatever to any attack on Col. Crous or any suggestion that Col. Crous was being interfered with.

You say he could not see?

I say that he was on the Parliament side of the pavement, and that he would have had great difficulty in seeing exactly what was happening to Col. Crous because of the people roundabout. I think the photographs published in the Press make that very clear indeed, and the evidence I have is from at least one man who was on the island in the middle of the street and from another who was on the pavement very near to the steps of the Cathedral. It seems then that Col. Crous merely directed the charge when it started. Now, if Brig. Lamprecht ordered that baton charge, Sir, why did he order it? What was the reason? His statement was that it had become an unlawful assembly. Well, if it became an unlawful assembly, why did he not do what he is supposed to do under the Police regulations? Why did he not warn the students to disperse?

He did.

Why did he not warn the students to disperse in English and in Afrikaans, as he should have done and probably on two occasions? Nowhere is there any evidence from any bystander that the Brigadier warned those students to disperse. Mr. Speaker, not only were the regulations not observed in that regard, but one is faced with a situation where there was a baton charge which might have been totally unnecessary. I wonder if those students would have stayed there if they had been told by the Police that the assembly had become an unlawful one and if they had been called upon to remove themselves within a certain time, under pain of arrest? Sir, would that not have been a more sensible way of dealing with the matter? That is what the law requires. Why was it not done? Instead, apparently, there was a baton charge, a baton charge which appears to have got out of control very quickly.

One of the questions I think one would like to ask as well is: For how long were the Police armed with batons, waiting at the bottom of the Avenue? One knows they were seen on the lawns outside this building, in a circle, being addressed, with their batons, and one knows they were marched down to the bottom of the Avenue. From evidence given to me by my own members of Parliament, it is quite clear that certain of those policemen took their numbers down when that baton charge took place. It is quite certain also that, participating in that baton charge, were a number of people in civilian clothes, armed with police batons. Mr. Speaker, they had no identification on them of any kind. To this day we do not know who they are. Were they Police reservists were they police off duty? Mr. Speaker, is it not the height of folly to produce people in civilian clothes, arm them with batons and let them take part in a baton charge? How do the people who are charged know whether they are civilians or police? I think you lay yourself open to the possibility that civilians, totally unconnected with the Police Force, can then take a hand as well. Where do you end, Sir, if you have, participating in a baton charge, plainclothes people without any armbands or any immediate means of identification? I should have thought it was one of the first principles of the proper maintenance of law and order, that no one participated in a baton charge who was not in his police uniform.

I have asked why no warning was given to the students and why there was no prior order to leave the area. Nobody knows whether they would have obeyed it or not. But then the charge took place, and we have to decide whether the violence used was excessive or not. There have been enough photographs in the newspapers of four, five and six policemen manhandling and hitting one student at the same time, for no one to have any doubt at all that this became a sort of Roman carnival. Not only was there the use of truncheons, but there is evidence that there was kicking and punching as well. There is evidence that certain women were beaten up. There is a report in one newspaper that a pregnant woman, who said she was pregnant, was also beaten up with a truncheon.

What was she doing there?

My friends say: “What was she doing there?” She was not ordered to leave. No warning was given. Some of my members of Parliament were there and they were not ordered to leave Nobody was told: “Clear away.” The first thing that happened was that there was a baton charge by the Police. [Interjections.]

Order! [Interjections.] Order! The hon. members for Umbilo and Stilfontein must contain themselves.

I was just reacting to what he was saying, Sir,

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to address the House.

Mr. Speaker, there have been reports in the newspapers and whether they are accurate or not I cannot say but I think it is the duty of this House to find out. I think the country should know. There have been reports of women being attacked with truncheons, of a woman reporter talking to a senior officer, who was hit with a truncheon. There is a report of a woman newspaper-photographer being attacked and when a reporter intervened he himself was attacked by five policemen although he had nothing to do with the students. One cannot help asking oneself whether it was necessary for the acts of violence to continue for as long as they did. Some 20 minutes after the baton charge took place, there is evidence that at least one man was beaten up in Queen Victoria Street. There is evidence of students going into the Cathedral and who were afraid to come out. Some who did come out in an attempt to get away, were chased and beaten up when they got outside. There is one member of Parliament here who went and negotiated with the Police and took them out in threes and fours to ensure that they would not be beaten up. While he was escorting one group out some 20 minutes after the occurrence, a man who dared to draw the attention of the crowd and clapped his hands was beaten up before the hon. gentleman. This led to an intervention from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and this happened 20 minutes after the baton charge, when these people had been hiding in the cathedral for that time. One cannot help asking oneself whether this was necessary, if it is true that students were pursued up Queen Victoria Street and up Wale Street and that students were grabbed from behind while they were running away and were beaten on the head and shoulders and forced down. There is a report of one student who was bleeding and who was being escorted by a priest to a doctor, who was again grabbed by the Police and beaten up once more. Sir, I cannot tell you whether these stories are true or not. [Interjections.] I can tell you that a large number of them are vouched for by my own members of Parliament who were present. I can tell you that I have interviewed people who were eye-witnesses, who claim that these stories are true. I think the least this Government owes the public of South Africa is a proper inquiry under the authority of a judge, so that we shall know whether this is the way a Police Force behaved or did not.

Sir, was it necessary to pursue fleeing students into the Cathedral? I know there is nothing illegal in doing it, but presumably they did not go inside the Cathedral to hold a demonstration. They went into the Cathedral to get away from the Police and to break up the meeting. Was it necessary to chase them in and drag them out and lambaste them down the steps and chuck them down? Then, Sir, I want to know something else. Why were Pressmen, who identified themselves, assaulted by the Police, and on whose authority were cameras confiscated and films exposed? Sir, it is the duty of the Press to report what goes on. There is an agreement between the Police and the Press that every possible facility should be given to these people to enable them to do their jobs properly. On whose authority is it that cameras were confiscated and films exposed on an occasion of this kind? I believe that one representative of the newspaper of the hon. the Leader of the House, Rapport, was beaten up, despite the fact that he was protesting hard that he was a representative of Rapport. Sir, I cannot help asking myself what the effects of this action will be in South Africa and elsewhere. It seems to me that as a result of this performance the Government has got the worst of both worlds. Its Police, who have been wrongly used, are going to be subjected to fierce criticism and much dislike. That is one dividend that it is going to get. It is going to get a second dividend, Mr. Speaker. The Government has played right into the hands of the activists who, having sponsored a case, which did not draw much attention and which was not very popular, have now been placed in a position where nationwide interest is focussed on them because of concern about the right of peaceful protest. It is not just I who say that.

As the result of your speech.

No, not as a result of my speech, but as a result of the world-wide publicity which has already been given to this incident; because so careful was the hon. gentleman and his Division of Information—or call it what you will—that they had this performance right in front of the building where nearly all the foreign correspondents in Cape Town have their offices. They had a grandstand view; they did not have to move. Sir, here is what the Government newspaper, Die Burger, says—

There you have it, Sir; out of the mouth of the Government’s own Press organ it is indicated what the direct result of this is going to be. And then, Sir, there is a third result that hon. gentlemen opposite have achieved, and that is that the effect on the outside world is going to be catastrophic as far as South Africa is concerned. I think that in the handling of this event the Government revealed the height of incompetence, but I believe that even that incompetence was surpassed by its handling of the meeting scheduled for 1.15 p.m. today. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that the first news that was received by anybody in or near this House that that meeting had been banned by the Chief Magistrate was at 12.50 p.m., ten minutes to one, 25 minutes before the meeting was to start? Either the Government wanted to ban the meeting or they did not. If they wanted to ban the meeting, it could have been done by an announcement this morning. I telephoned the morning Press last night and asked whether there had been any indication that the meeting would be banned.

Why telephone the Press?

I expected it to be announced before midnight.

Why?

So that the public would be told not to attend the meeting. Was it the Government’s object to allow 10 000 or 15 000 people to gather there, not knowing whether there was going to be a meeting or not? What was the objective? If you want to ban a meeting, you do so timeously and do not wait until all the people have got there. Have you ever heard, Sir, of such a hamhanded situation? How do you communicate to the crowd present that the meeting has been banned? I know the Police were there with loud-hailers. The report I have is that the loud-hailers were so poor that a large part of the crowd never realized that the meeting had been banned and they milled around there until 2 p.m. That has been the effect of this utter incompetence, in respect of the handling of this matter. Is it not asking for trouble to leave the matter until it is so late? It appears to me that this Government has no idea at all of how to deal with crowd control. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I cannot warn too seriously. There is building up here in South Africa, and the hon. the Minister has given us evidence of it today, a confrontation between the forces of law and order on the one side and the forces of dissent on the other side. In that confrontation, in the last resort, it will depend on the discretion of the Police whether the forces of law and order retain the sympathy of the public on their side. That is why it is so vitally important not only that justice be done but that it also be seen to be done. That is why this party has always been on the side of law and order. But this Government, unless he can so manage things that that discretion by the Police is wisely used in dealing with the dissenter, will find that public sympathy will flow away from the Police as the enforcers of law and order and will go towards the dissenters, the people who do not deserve to have it. That is exactly the situation about which the activists and the agitators in South Africa are rubbing their hands in delight and waiting to see whether they can bring it about. We must not forget that in many of the disturbances overseas the students caused just this sort of situation. They were used by activists themselves. The workers were brought in and their grievances were exploited, and before very long, because of the way the Police behaved in certain cases, the Police lost the sympathy of the public and the forces against law and order got that sympathy. It is for that reason that I want to make an appeal this afternoon from this House to those responsible for our great institutions of learning, our universities in South Africa. I want to appeal to all those authorities at those universities to warn the young people under their care—their charges, their students—that when they allow themselves to be used for these purposes, which they very often do not properly understand, they are playing with fire because they may start a conflagration in which they will be the first people to be swept aside. [Interjections.]

Order!

I have asked for a judicial commission of inquiry; I have asked for that commission because I believe that the facts as found by a judge should be put clearly before the public of South Africa. I believe secondly we must have properly formulated the circumstances under which it is right and justified to call for the use of force on occasions of this kind. I want to say to the Government and to hon. members opposite that if they refuse this request, they will be playing into the hands of the very people who are trying to undermine law and order in South Africa, people with whom we on this side of the House, and I am sure also hon. members opposite, do not wish to be associated at all. You see, Sir, this side of the House has always taken the line that we stand for the maintenance of law and order. We stand for constitutional change in South Africa. Whilst we appreciate the dangers to us all of that chaos, which so many of the activists are working for, we understand what the problems of the Police are and what their difficulties are in trying to maintain law and order. By contrast one gets the impression more and more from this Cabinet and this Government that they are intolerant of protests and intolerant of opposition. There seems to me to be amongst them a growing feeling of justification of the use of violence as a proper remedy against protests. The hon. the Prime Minister has issued a warning which to me seems to reveal an intention to deal with unrest on the campuses and with protests by punitive rather than preventive measures and then to justify it by stimulating provocation and, if necessary, taking reprisals. One gets the impression that they felt the students needed a good hiding and they acted as witnesses, judges and executioners. You cannot run South Africa in that way. You cannot maintain law and order in that way. You cannot maintain the traditions by which this country has stood and fought over the years if that is what is done. That is why I want to press my request for a proper judicial inquiry into these events, and a proper answer to the questions I have put, not only in the interest of the protection of the South African Police itself, but also in the interest and the protection of law and order in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I did not expect that I would be participating in this debate at this stage, because I was absent over the week-end and returned to Cape Town only at a quarter past one this afternoon. As regards this matter to which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred, I therefore want to say at once that, as a result of my absence, I have naturally not been able to acquaint myself with all the facts and circumstances. I have had neither the time nor the opportunity to do so. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition will therefore understand that as far as this matter is concerned, I am not going to go into details as he in fact did. I merely want to discuss certain general matters in connection with it.

To my regret I have to say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition across the floor of the House, or rather ask him: when will you stop running with the hares and hunting with the hounds? [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, one does not easily level such an accusation at a Leader of an Opposition, but the circumstances which have been referred to and the speech made here today by my hon. friend himself, compel me to level that accusation. Furthermore, I want to ask my hon. friends opposite: When are they going to decide where exactly they stand in regard to this matter? This matter is not merely one of a group of students having indulged in student frivolity, fun, or whatever, and having caused a rumpus which led to a clash with the Police. My hon. friend and hon. members opposite know that it goes much deeper than this. Surely my hon. friends know that we must regard those students as nothing more or less than the puppets who were simply dancing to the dictates of the people who were pulling the strings elsewhere. That is in fact what is happening, what we have to deal with. What did my friend do here this afternoon? He made a minutes-long attack on the Police. In passing he dissociated himself from the pamphlet issued by the students, and he addressed a brief word to the leaders of the universities. What was the overall impression conveyed by my friend’s speech? The overall impression, and I regret saying this to the Leader of the Opposition, conveyed by his speech is that he is on the side of those who are ranged against the Police. [Interjections.]

That is not true.

I now want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to the entire Opposition that, as far as I am concerned, I associate myself fully with the Police and that I am completely on their side. [Interjections.]

Right or wrong; that is precisely the difficulty.

I shall tell the hon. member now that for years I worked very closely with the Police under both good and difficult circumstances. I am as aware as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition or any person that there will be policemen or individuals who will go beyond the limits of their powers from time to time, that there are individuals in any Police Force in the world who will commit indiscretions from time to time. There will be policemen who do things which they should not do. It has already happened in our country too.

Do you say that you support that?

I have not even completed my argument, but the hon. member for Zululand is so prejudiced against the Police that he wants to hear nothing but evil of them. I say that I was associated with them for years. In those years I as Minister, together with the Commissioner of Police, never hesitated on a single occasion to take action against an individual policeman who had overstepped the mark. This is the guarantee that South Africa has always had from the Government and from the commanding officer of the Police, and this is the guarantee which our people will have at all times, that if individuals in the Police Force transgress, their uniforms offer them no protection at all.

What do you want to hide now?

If that hon. member had been a member of my party and I could have hidden him away, I should have liked to do so. [Interjections.] I would have hidden him away completely, because I would have been ashamed that the people should see him. I say that the guarantee which our people have, is the fact that in the past action has always been taken when it was necessary. What is more, the Police themselves have never hesitated to investigate all matters concerning their own colleagues when charges have been laid in that regard. This hon. House and the country knows that in this case, too, if there are people who allege that the Police overstepped the mark and that they acted unlawfully, they know what course they should take. They know that the course they should take is to go and lay a charge and that those charges will be investigated properly. After I had read particularly the Sunday Times yesterday, I want to say that if there is something against which I rise in opposition, it is the trial by newspapers in so far as the Police are concerned in the past few days. For that reason I want to speak out most strongly against the fact that, according to certain newspapers, the Police have already been condemned, accused and found guilty and that judgment has already been pronounced on them as far as this matter is concerned. It is terribly easy, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has done, to come and relate a lot of stories to this House about what this one said and about what that one said. I could have done the same. But what did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition himself say at the end of his story? He said: “I cannot tell whether these stories are true or not.” After we had been regaled with these stories, the hon. the Leader said, quite rightly, that he could not say whether they were true or not. I want to repeat to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that if there are people, pressmen, photographers, members of the public, who allege that the Police assaulted them, the course they should take is to lay charges.

They are going to do it.

The hon. member for Wynberg, who, as usual, is presumptuous when it comes to this type of thing, says they are going to do so. Very well, let them go ahead and do so. It will receive the necessary attention from the Police. Then the courts will pronounce judgment on whether or not the people were assaulted. If the courts find that they were assaulted, they know what further action to take in that regard. Then the Government on its part will also do the necessary, as it does in all such cases.

What does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition want now?

A judicial commission.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants a judicial inquiry. Let me tell him now that that is exactly what the leftist elements in South Africa want. Speaking of playing right into the hands of those people: having such a judicial inquiry would be playing directly into the hands of those people. What would we get? For months and months— after all, we know this; it is not necessary for us to guess about it—we shall get this type of “police brutality” propaganda against South Africa being sent out to the world day after day. This is not the first time that we have had to deal with that type of thing.

But let us analyse the other aspects of the matter now. Why should we appoint a judicial commission of inquiry now? In reply to a question put by the hon. member for Durban North, the hon. the Minister this afternoon gave us an account of what happened there. This account must be viewed in the light of the fact that the matter is sub judice, since certain charges have already been formulated. What is the gist of the matter? The gist of the matter is that approximately 200 students gathered here at the Cathedral, that for the reasons which the hon. the Minister mentioned, the Police were given instructions and that the action was taken that was taken. Even with the grossest exaggeration that there was in the newspapers …

How do you know it was exaggeration? You do not know the facts yet.

I repeat: With the grossest exaggeration that there was in the newspapers …I refer the hon. member to the fact that this matter was even linked with Sharpeville. What greater exaggeration do you want than that it is linked with Sharpeville? Then he asks me: “Where was the exaggeration?” But I go further. What happened here? There were a number of students—let me say at once that one saw this thing coming from far off—who came looking for trouble. There is no doubt about that. There is no doubt that they were eventually dispersed by the Police—not an enormous number of Police, but 20 or more.

No, it was much closer to 100.

The hon. member may go and give evidence in court. They should very much like to hear him in this regard. Be that as it may, these students were dispersed by the Police and, as the hon. the Minister said, with rubber batons, things which admittedly, can inflict painful blows, but which cannot cause serious injuries. Even with the grossest exaggeration, to which I was referring when the hon. the Leader interrupted me, I have not seen a single report of any person having been seriously injured in that incident.

What about the blood?

On what grounds …

May I ask the hon. the Prime Minister a question? If the students had to be dispersed, why did the Police not use tear-gas in the first place?

Those are questions to which the Minister of Police will reply. I have told the hon. member that I could not acquaint myself with the facts because I only arrived here before 1 o’clock. According to no report was one single individual seriously injured in any way. All we have before us now, is that blows were inflicted on certain students. It may or may not be true that a few members of the public also received blows in the process.

Mrs. Van Oudenhove?

Yes, it may be so or it may not, I do not know. I want to ask the hon. member now whether, because blows were struck, we should appoint a commission of inquiry? I want to say to the hon. member that I am not prepared to do so; I am not prepared to do so, just as I was not prepared to do so in the past when the demand was also made, and for the same reasons.

Must they first be beaten to death before you would appoint a commission of inquiry?

The hon. the Leader knows that his interjection is a nonsensical one.

Why?

The circumstances of this specific case do not justify it.

I want to go further …

What about Kolver’s case?

In that case that hon member’s party and others caused the integrity of persons to be called into question. He is the last hon. member who should put such a question. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred just in passing to the pamphlet which was issued. This pamphlet was not issued spontaneously, and the hon. the Leader agrees that it was not issued spontaneously. This demonstration did not take place spontaneously either. It all forms part of a pattern. I now want to say to hon. members and to the hon. Leader of the Opposition that it is part of the following pattern: There are people in this country—they have tried this in the past already—who want to bring about a change of government here in South Africa by bypassing the Constitution and Parliament. [Interjections.] The hon. the Leader says he knows this.

Now you are playing into their hands.

No, Sir, I am not playing into their hands. I know exactly what they are engaged in, and because I know exactly what they are engaged in, it is correct that the Police should act and nip this matter in the bud right at the start. I now want to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: If it is necessary to use a little violence, to use rubber batons, to nip in the bud what has been planned against South Africa, we shall not hesitate to do so.

Even if it is illegal?

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition want to suggest by that that the action of the Police was illegal?

It may well be.

The hon. the Leader must realize the full implications of what he is saying. He says to me it may well be. If he wants to ask me a question, he is welcome to do so.

Why was no warning issued to those students?

As far as I know, Col. Crous did issue such a warning; but this is again a matter which the hon. the Minister can clear up when he speaks.

Sir, I want to go further. Let us now argue the matter on the basis that there was no warning. Let me argue the matter as though there was no warning. Then I say these students were bent on infringing the law. The object of these students was to cause a rumpus, to create a hubbub around the Parliamentary Buildings here in Cape Town. For my part I want to say that I would have taken it amiss of the Police if they had not acted as they did. [Interjections.]

I want to go further. I want to say it has become time that those in authority at certain of our universities realized their responsibility towards their universities, towards South Africa and towards law and order. In addition, it has become time for them to make their choice. I want to express my thanks and appreciation to the vast majority of students at Afrikaans- and English-speaking universities in South Africa who are not identifying themselves with these people. But, Sir, surely it is known—surely we need have no doubt about that— that these students who are responsible for the demonstrations and the unrest, identify themselves actively with our enemies abroad.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition agrees. These are people who identify themselves actively with the enemies of South Africa.

You provide them with the most wonderful propaganda to send into the world.

Since there is agreement now between the Leader of the Opposition and me that these demonstrating students identify themselves actively with our enemies abroad, I want to make an urgent and very earnest appeal in this House to the principals, councils and senates of the universities not only to ensure that law and order is maintained, but also to use their influence actively in order to ensure that misuse is not made of their universities in conflict with the greatest interests of South Africa and its security. I take it that in this regard I may speak on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition as well …

Yes.

… when I say that this Government is slowly becoming tired of pleading, which I personally have done with the authorities at those universities. The Government is slowly becoming tired of warning, and a time will come when very drastic action will be taken in respect of these universities. One hesitates to do it and does not do it easily; one makes many allowances. But where it is very clear that South Africa’s universities are being harnessed to the cause of communists abroad, harnessed to the cause of terrorism, harnessed to the cause of those people who want to undermine and destroy South Africa, it cannot be expected of any government to close its eyes to it. I want to emphasize this warning very strongly this afternoon.

Sir, then there is the old story that we are playing into the hands of those people. I have a great deal of experience of that. I have a great deal of experience of that sort of cry which has been raised. What do they want? I shall tell you what they want, Sir, We must act in such a way that we give no offence to anyone. We must act in such a way that we slide backwards more and more; we must act in such a way that all these little men become bolder and bolder; we must act in such a way that they get increasing numbers of people on their side … [Interjections] … otherwise we are playing into their hands. I say that the most effective way of acting in regard to this type of thing, is to take such action as was taken here on Friday. I want to make it very clear that as often as it may become necessary to do so again in future if law and order are at stake, it will be done.

I want to go further, Sir, The hon. the Leader of the Opposition says this is causing us tremendous harm abroad. I want to say to you, Sir, that among responsible people it is doing us a great deal of good that South Africa is proving that it is prepared to take action against such things. I have many reasons for saying that to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I want to say to him: Not only people here in South Africa, but right-thinking people throughout the world are sick and tired of this sort of action by students.

May I put a question to the hon. the Prime Minister? Was it then the intention, the plan, to take such action against these people?

Sir, surely only a prophet could have foreseen that, and we do not have De Goede on our side to prophesy in this regard. The incident developed as it did because of the circumstances mentioned here by the Minister. I want to repeat: If the Police had not acted as they did, I personally would have been disappointed, because it would have been an indication to me that we were slipping backwards in respect of maintaining law and order in South Africa.

I conclude, Sir, By way of summary, I want to say this: If there are people who feel that they have been done an injustice, their charges will receive the best attention on the highest level.

But you say the Police acted correctly.

I say that if there are people who maintain that they were done an injustice in that process, their charges will receive the best attention on the highest level. I have warned against future action, because it is very clear to me that this is merely the prelude to things which are being planned. I want to warn that the people behind these students must be very careful. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and I both know that important people are behind them, in the same way as they were behind the African Resistance Movement and other organizations at the university in that regard. We then took special measures to ferret them out and to eradicate them, and I shall not hesitate for a single moment to do so in this case as well. But as far as the request of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is concerned, I am not going to make myself and the Government parties to creating the impression in respect of this matter that law and order will not be maintained in South Africa.

Sir, if ever in the history of our country a Prime Minister has done a great disservice to law and order and to the Police Force and to the country’s image and to the survival of law and order, this hon. gentleman has just done it now. You know, Sir, I could hardly credit the hon. the Prime Minister’s statement that the only way to deal with this situation was to deal with it as it was dealt with on Friday and as often as it is necessary to do so.

Why not?

Sir, let me ask him this: Does he mean that it will be done even if it is illegal; that it will be done even if it does harm to our image; even if it puts people on the side of the “optre-ders” and against the Police? That is what we want to know, and we have not had answers to those questions from either the hon. the Minister of Police or the hon. the Prime Minister. What is the hon. the Prime Minister announcing here? What sort of statement is this? Does it amount to a decision that we are going to have some sort of authoritarian rule where the police can do what they like even if it is illegal?

You know that is nonsense.

That is what the hon. the Prime Minister said. It is quite all right; he does not mind if it is illegal. He is not concerned about this because he says that everyone who feels aggrieved can lay a charge and that it will be dealt with at the highest level. Really, Sir, where have we come to? I do not think the hon. the Prime Minister realizes what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has been saying here, because the hon. the Prime Minister himself gave evidence of the need for a judicial commission of inquiry. What did he say? As far as he knows, Col. Crous gave the order to disperse. Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister is a former Minister of Police and of Justice. He knows how this is done; he must know the procedure. The procedure is, as my hon. leader has indicated, that you give a loud warning in both official languages and in the vernacular if necessary. You make everyone aware of this and you give them time to disperse. Sir, if you look at the Riotous Assemblies Act, you will see that that is what the police have to do under section 7 in circumstances such as these, that is to say, in circumstances where the officer in charge, a man with the rank of head constable or higher, has reason to believe that someone may be killed or that there is a manifest intention to kill somebody or where the probability is that someone may be killed, or where there is a probability that, in his opinion, damage will be done to property. In those circumstances he must give a warning, and in those circumstances the Act lays down that not more force than is necessary may be used. The Act goes on to say just how it should be done. But in this particular case there was, so far as one can see on the evidence, no warning given. The hon. the Prime Minister says that as far as he is aware, a warning was given. If that is the grip that the hon. the Prime Minister has of the facts of this matter, then he should change his mind. If I were to say to him that no warning was given, I hope he will change his mind and say that in these circumstances he has been misinformed and that the facts of the matter ought to be brought to light and that we ought to have a judicial commission. Sir, I am surprised that the hon. the Prime Minister has given no indication that he is sorry about the way in which this meeting was broken up. He has made a great issue about this pamphlet. But, Sir, this is precisely the point that my hon. leader made. I wonder if any member on that side has seen the pamphlet that was handed out on Friday. My hon. leader has read out parts of it, and what my hon. leader said was that the people who compiled this document, were in fact the ones who organized that meeting. It is those people who are crowing at the moment because they have got the reaction that they wanted; they have now got the public with them. Mr. Speaker, this is much more serious. I am not talking about the students now. I am talking about the people who put out this pamphlet. Sir, if after reading that pamphlet—my hon. leader has put enough of it on the record—you were to say to me that it was compiled by the Congress of Democrats, then I would say, “Yes, it seems to me that that is very likely.” Sir, I want to tell you something else. I spoke to a member of the Students’ Representative Council of the University of Cape Town, who were exhorting people to come to the meeting today and to go to the Cathedral yesterday. I asked him whether he had seen this pamphlet. He said, “no”. I asked him whether he knew that it was being handed out on Friday. He said, “no”. I then asked him to look at the pamphlet and he did. I then asked him, “Do you agree with it?”. His reply was, “Good heavens, no.” That is what is happening here, Sir, I tell you, Sir, that the action of the Police on Friday and the action of the hon. the Prime Minister today is making ordinary, responsible people who reject this pamphlet absolutely, as we do, sympathize with the people who are behind this. This is the effect of it, Sir, I think the hon. the Prime Minister knows that he has no right to say that we stand on the side of those who are against the Police. We have said here often enough, and we will go on saying, that in the end law and order is maintained by the Police Force, and the Police Force cannot enforce law and order if it does not have the support and confidence of the public. When that day comes when it does not have the support and the confidence of the public, then I want to say that it will be unable to maintain law and order. In the very nature of things we have a few policemen who have to do a big job. Sir, in this country we have seen the job that our police do, and I want to say that they have a more difficult job to do than any other policemen anywhere in the world because they have to deal with more difficult circumstances than any other Police Force. It is a small number of policemen who are necessarily charged with having to maintain law and order. Sir, our security is the first concern of us all; the internal security of South Africa is the first concern of us all, and when I say that it is the first concern of us all, I mean us on both sides of this House, and the Indian population—we witnessed the riots that took place in Durban in 1949 where, but for the existence of a Police Force the Indian population might well have been wiped out that night and the Zulus and every Bantu race in this country. All these people rely upon the South African Police and give them their support. Everyone does. Sir, if you undermine the confidence of the public in the Police Force you will not have an effective Police Force. The hon. the Prime Minister says he associates himself completely with what the Police did on Friday. Sir, the hon. the Prime Minister does not know what the Police did on Friday, but he is prepared to make a wild, broad, general statement, very “kragdadig”, that he is with the Police whatever they do. He shakes his head and says again: I am with the Police whether they are right or wrong, whether they act lawfully or unlawfully, whether they keep the public with him or whether they do not. Now, Sir, what does the hon. the Prime Minister not say to us? He says there is no Police Force in the world which does not commit indiscretions. Yes, I agree, and I also agree with him when he says that the indiscretions of the S.A. Police are rooted out by the Police. That is correct, but this was not an indiscretion; this was a major blunder on the part of the Government, on the part of the Police, and what is more, this blunder is being now repeated. It is being condoned not only by the hon. Minister of Police but also by the hon. the Prime Minister. When the hon. members opposite cavil at what my hon. Leader said when he said: These are the things which are reported in the newspapers; these are the things I see; I do not know whether they are true or not, there is a sort of hollow laughter on that side of the House. I want to tell you, Sir, that not one of those statements has been denied, nor did the hon. the Minister of Police today in his statement deny them, so that they stand there on the record. Surely it is of fundamental importance that the public should know that these things happened or did not happen, and should know what is going to be done in this regard. The guarantee that the Police will root out their own members, that the hon. the Prime Minister speaks about, and that this will make everybody certain that their rights will not be infringed, is a departmental inquiry. This is not sufficient. What the public wants and what the country needs is a guarantee that the Government will properly control the Police Force. And that it uses the Police Force properly.

Why do you not ask for an investigation into the background and behaviour of students?

As far as I know there is a Select Committee which is looking at matters like this, and I think the hon. member is a member of that Select Committee.

He does not know what he is doing.

It is no good the hon. the Prime Minister talking about this being a newspaper trial. The hon. the Prime Minister asks why there should be a judicial inquiry. The only reason he gave was that there would be adverse publicity. The hon. the Prime Minister knows better than I do, because he has appointed enough judicial commissions of inquiry in his time, that the commission can be empowered to hear certain evidence in camera if he wants to. Its report is always made available. The hon. the Prime Minister says that there will be a lot of trials, looking at the events to see where the person should get damages, whether somebody acted unlawfully. But that is not what is wanted. What is wanted is an inquiry to determine what happened on Friday and how it could have happened, in the interests of the Police themselves, so that we can be assured and that they can be assured that whatever were the causes of this happening, it will not happen again. That is what we say, that it will not happen again, but the hon. the Prime Minister says it will go on happening. He seems to suggest that this is going to be the modus operandi.

The Police will act whenever it is necessary to do so.

That is what the hon. the Prime Minister said. He said that the way to deal with these people was the way in which they were dealt with on Friday, and as often as is necessary.

Whenever it is necessary they will be dealt with.

Despite the fact that it may be illegal? Does that not concern the hon. the Prime Minister? Where is the answer to that question why a warning was not given? Good heavens, Sir, one does this in the most severe circumstances, a warning is given. Why was a warning not given to these students? This is not a matter of an indiscretion; this the mounting of a big operation which went completely wrong. One is forced to ask oneself how it could possibly have gone so wrong when trouble was anticipated One does not suddenly have the policemen that there were around the place armed with rubber truncheons, which they do not normally carry. unless trouble was anticipated. If trouble was anticipated, then the questions which have not been answered become even more urgent in requiring an answer. The hon. the Prime Minister says there were only 20 policemen, so why have a judicial commission of inquiry. As far as I am aware, the Police statements themselves have indicated that there were far more than 20 policemen; something in the nature of 60 policemen, so far as I am aware.

No.

That hon. Minister says “no”. Does the hon. the Minister say that the number of policemen employed on that Friday, altogether, was only 20, both at the scene and the people who were not there?

And the people without uniform?

Yes, that is the other thing; the number of people that were there in plain clothes without any identification on their arms at all. Surely the hon. the Prime Minister does not approve of that. If there is one thing the public must know, it is who is a policeman, especially when he is dealing with a situation such as this where force may become necessary. When force becomes necessary, because you have given a warning and the people won’t disperse, then the public must know who is the policeman, so that they can obey his lawful commands.

The public wants law and order.

Does anyone know whether those people were policemen, or whether they were reservists, or who they were? I want to say that the danger exists that, if they do not have some identification in the form of an armband or uniform or something else, there may be a public riot, because, unless one knows that it is a policeman, one might feel entitled to retaliate and beat them too. God help us in this country if this were ever to happen!

This is what has happened. There were people running around with no identification on them at all, with truncheons, beating up various people in various parts all over the place. Does he approve of that? They were even going into the cathedral. This is the issue. The hon. the Prime Minister must reconsider his attitude. He cannot say that he just stands by the Police, that what happened on Friday is the way to deal with them and that this will happen as often as is necessary. Then he is saying that he approves of them hitting pregnant women; he is saying he approves of them hitting women; he approves of them beating up women reporters; he approves of them running around in the cathedral dragging people from under pews; he approves of them running through the cathedral hitting people who are doing nothing except trying to escape from the unlawful gathering. He approves of plainclothes policemen running around hitting people without identification; and he approves of this stroppy attitude that was exhibited apparently, after the event, despite the fact that these are unlawful. No, this is not good enough. This answer is not good enough. The hon. the Prime Minister must reconsider what he has said.

The question that is before us here is: Are we going to be able to maintain law and order? With the attitude the hon. the Prime Minister has displayed today, I can tell you we are going to have great difficulty in doing that, because you will, as I have said, lose the support of the public.

You used that same argument in the past.

In 1961.

It is a very good argument. What dismays me is this: The hon. the Prime Minister says he got back at quarter to one today and so has not been able to apprise himself fully of the facts. I want to say that the hon. the Prime Minister is not aware of the feeling that is abroad in our country in relation to this matter. I shall tell hon. members that I remember someone who will remain nameless, but who is a responsible person and who on that same day went to lunch and saw the students on the stairs, and who then said: “What a scruffy, lousy lot they are! I have no time for them.” When he came back this was happening, this unnecessary event was taking place. His sympathies were suddenly switched, and that is the danger. I want to say that if the hon. the Prime Minister does not change his attitude in this respect he personally will be responsible for what will flow from this event.

I am prepared to accept the responsibility.

I know you are, and this is what worries me. [Interjections.] The Prime Minister is prepared to accept the responsibility despite the fact that he does not know the facts, despite the fact that in all probability a number of unlawful events took place and despite the fact that the normal procedures were not obeyed. The hon. the Prime Minister is prepared to accept the responsibility just because he is in charge and it is in his nature to say that he is “kragdadig”. This is the image he wants to keep and just because of that he is prepared to say that this can happen again and that he accepts the responsibility for it. [Interjections.] I want to say that despite the smirking, smug looks on the faces of the hon. gentlemen over there, they themselves must go out and ask their own people what their attitude towards this is. It does not end here and you do not justify something like this because you do not like the cause of the demonstrators. We have made it very clear that we do not like the cause of the demonstrators. The cause behind those demonstrators may not well be the cause of the students, as I have indicated, but the result of this, unless proper steps are taken, will be that this Government will undermine the Police Force and will undermine in the process law and order. I appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister to reconsider his attitude …

You are a coward.

… to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry in the interests of our country and in the interests of our Police.

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member for Stilfontein entitled to say that the hon. member for Durban North is a coward?

Order! Did the hon. member say that?

I did, Mr. Speaker, but I withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to two brief points I should like to associate myself with what was said by the hon. member for Durban North, who has just resumed his seat. In the first place I believe that one thing he said was true, to a very large extent, for the space of two days, and that in some circles it will perhaps still be true, and that is that what happened on Friday could possibly cause sympathy for students to grow. I think that sympathy for the students’ conduct could hereby still increase for a long time. This will be the case for those people who will not, or cannot, use their common sense. I also want to say that as far as my personal feelings are concerned, I do not like this kind of thing. I felt unhappy about it.

But I expected more from a responsible Opposition and from any responsible person than this conduct today. Since one has had a week-end in which to think about and reflect upon these matters, I expected that one would have decided what one’s standpoint is and not gone on “hunting with the hounds and running with the hares”, as the hon. the Prime Minister said. I want to state, with the utmost clarity, that this conduct on Friday was not an event with a half-hour long or two-hour long history. This event has a long history, and this Opposition has been fully aware of it throughout the years. They have been warned about it for a long time.

The second point I want to come to is that the hon. member made the following allegation against the Police: “Why was a warning not given?” Should there have been a warning that that baton charge would take place, a warning that they would be dispersed, or a warning that they would be asked to disperse? I now want to pose a question to the Opposition. This action eventually took place, and a decision will be taken about the justification for that action at a later stage.

†I want to pose this question to the Opposition and especially to the hon. member who has just sat down and to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition: Why was this warning not given, not to the Police, but to the students by that side of the House during the many years that we on this side of the House have been warning them that this was what things would lead to?

*There is no need to speak about Friday afternoon as if this were only the culmination. This culmination, which the Opposition has helped to bring nearer and nearer by their aloofness, could have been a much more serious one than it actually was on Friday afternoon.

I want to come back to what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in his argument this afternoon. In the first place he said that these events would have repercussions for South Africa abroad. I believe this is so. I think it would be foolish to deny this. But these repercussions are being made much worse by the fact that while efforts are being made to maintain law and order under difficult circumstances, circumstances one is not desirous of seeing, the conduct of the students is condoned by the Opposition three days afterwards. That is what happens in this debate. That is what has happened in the debates recently.

In the first place it is not a matter of the “outside world”. We are right to take this into consideration, but it is firstly a matter of the security of the people, all people in our fatherland. It is also a matter of the safety of the students who think they can rule this country in this way, the small group who use fellow students to issue this propaganda. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that people realize that the United Party does not agree with such demonstrators. I think it was also the hon. member for Umbilo who said, in a statement in the Press, that he does not agree with it. I do not want to doubt his word. But on 22nd October, 1968, the Star reported that 400 delegates of the United Party’s Transvaal Congress were in Pretoria. There were discussions at this congress as a result of some or other statement of the hon. the Prime Minister. The words that were used, according to this report, were the following—

and then the following—

He was “loudly cheered” when he said that the method of protest, whatever form it might take, should not be taken into consideration. The Prime Minister’s statement, which was being discussed there, was made as a result of protest marches that took place there in the Transvaal at the time. I want to task the hon. the Leader of the Opposition why he has not been warning the students since 1968 about what he expected the Police would do to them under difficult circumstances if at any time the law should be provoked.

But I respectfully say that the Leader of the Opposition is also very much in the dark when he alleges here, as he did in the rest of his speech, that the Prime Minister or the Minister of Police does not have the right to link up the events at the non-White campuses with these events that reached a climax here on Friday and today. I do not know whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is interested in hearing a quotation in this connection from the Burger, but if not I shall at least state, for the purposes of the record, that the Burger reported that the official newspaper of the University of Cape Town, Varsity, devoted an entire article in its latest issue that proves that the Opposition Leader is wrong if he says there is no connection. According to the report in the Burger the contents of the leading article in Varsity were as follows (translation)—

Mr. Harry Oppenheimer is criticized about wages that he must pay to non-White workers at a factory in Witbank, wages that must be equal to the wages paid to Whites there. But the report goes further, and I would appreciate it if the hon. the Leader of the Opposition would just listen to it. This report is written about Saso, the “South African Students’ Organization”, the Black student organization, which was established in opposition to Nusas. In the report it is also stated that, and I quote (translation)—

That is what the official Cape Town student newspaper had to say to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition who states that these matters are in no way connected. This report states further—

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition still dare to say, with any degree of responsibility, that there is no connection between these matters, as the hon. the Minister of Police said? I also want to mention that not so long ago, in an interview on 15th January, 1971, the then chairman of the Student Council of the University of Cape Town, a certain Mr. Jan Theron, said something that is interesting. It is also recorded in Hansard, because it was quoted in a speech by the hon. member for Boksburg. This question was put to him, inter alia: “What bodies do support student protests?” He then replied—

Can it still be denied that throughout the years, when we have been trying to tell students to continue with their studies and to leave these matters alone, we obtained no help and support from the United Party, as has been proved again today?

The Prime Minister said that the final impression left by the Leader of the Opposition’s speech is that he was absolutely bent on launching an attack on the Police, and I want to say that the hon. member for Durban North succeeded in doing exactly the same thing. Show me one speech that has been made by them during the years I have been sitting here, that has been opposed to the incitement of students and their usurping of power. Every time— I challenge any member of the Opposition to go and read this up—the word “but” was added, as was the case this afternoon. They are allegedly engaged in protesting against aspects that justify such protest. Every time it is a matter of “I do not like your protest, ‘but’ you have the right to protest” or, as the hon. member for Umbilo said “I do not like protests, ‘but’ I did not like the Police either”.

I objected to their action. I did not say I objected to the Police.

That is correct. In fairness to the hon. member I want to say that that is quite correct. He said he is opposed to protests, but—and this he added—he is also opposed to the conduct of the Police. He has the fullest right to be opposed to the conduct of some policemen. However, I look forward to the day when, for once, the hon. member for Umbilo also makes the unqualified statement that: “Now this student nonsense must come to an end.”

I now want to come back to what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said in his speech in connection with the churches. I think it is necessary to obtain clarity about one matter this afternoon, i.e. what exactly is meant when we speak about “churches” in this House. I am speaking as an ex-minister of a Protestant church, and I want to add that however much I love my church I have always tried to have respect for all people, whatever their religion. But when it comes to a church being involved in such a way, as I shall quote to you, a church to which I do not belong but which is one of the sister churches, a church I am also proud of for the work it has done for Whites, non-Whites and for students in this country, then my protest starts to be more than a student protest march, then it is a protest that comes from deep from the heart. Are there any denials when the United Party’s mouthpieces, which will also carry these reports again this afternoon, say this kind of thing? Listen to the sentimental nature of this report—

Here is my reply to this newspaper and such insinuations that also come from some members on that side from time to time: It cannot happen in the Groote Kerk, because the Groote Kerk would not allow students to come along there with this kind of demonstration. The Church would not allow a church building and church steps to be used for the kind of activities that have recently been allowed at these churches by people who openly give their support to those who want to undermine us.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition doubted whether those steps could be regarded as “public property”. He said he did not know whether that area could be regarded as “public property”, “private property” or as “church property”. I think we must also obtain clarity about that, because this question of the church was dragged in by many people who are probably not very closely connected with the church, though some are perhaps sympathetically disposed to the church. May I ask—also with respect to any future decisions about demonstrations on this corner, where other demonstrators also stand so frequently: Where does the property of that church end? Where may a policeman go and drag people away if they are engaged in ugly and illegal demonstrations, if they are doing things that are wrong? Where may he go and drag them away, on ground that is not holy ground? Does this start at the bottom step? Does it stop at the top step? Is it in that doorway to which they retreated this afternoon with posters when they could no longer get onto the steps? Is it just a little further back into the church where the light just reaches, or must it be near the pulpit? Where does that church property end? Where does the holiness begin? I say this with deep respect. I should like to respect any church’s property. This Government has gone so far, where churches are concerned, as to tell the Mohammedans that their church properties, which are hallowed by them in a particular way, will be respected when District Six is cleared up. But when religion is abused, as in recent years, when Canon Collins and others, under the cloak of religion, one after another want to destroy everything in this country, including our Christian Religion, which is this country’s anchor, then we on this side of the House protest, and then at least every right-thinking person on that side of the House ought to stand by us. Because this circle widens; this circle of people who want to gain sympathy under the cloak of religion. They no longer want to preach the gospel, which is entrusted to churches and which is their task, but they support this kind of incitement against what are called “social evils”.

In conclusion I just want to touch on this point. If it is a Canon Collins, or others, who pulled out of this country to continue his evil work against South Africa in foreign parts under the cloak of religion, if it pleases those people to also have their cause possibly served temporarily by this means, then we know that only in calmness and determination can we deal with this situation. If we must do so without the Opposition’s help, if it must be done the way the Opposition does it now and then, i.e. by saying: “Yes, but …,” we shall go on doing it for everyone’s benefit, including those poor misguided students who are abused by a small clique, some of whom are far removed from the universities, to continue their work, their devilish work, here.

Then as a colleague I should like to say something to someone I do not know; as a retired colleague to one who is still in office, I should like to say that that church building, which commands respect from Afrikaners, English-speaking South Africans, Protestants or whoever the case may be, no matter what synagogue or church they attend, must be closed to such demonstrations before it is abused for worse things than its abuse by the students when they fled into it the other day. I see there is also a statement in the Cape Times of the 3rd, a statement by “the Dean of Cape Town” in connection with this church. The report reads—

Not the entry by the students, but the entry by the Police, is regarded in that light.

This report continues—

Then it continues—

May I say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, who asked what the position is in connection with those steps. This is what the Dean says—

†By whom and for what purpose? To pray in the church—I say this with respect —to be in or near the church? For what purposes where they there and why were they given the right and by whom were they given the right to be there? And those who gave them the right, were they unable to anticipate that trouble could arise also for his own daughter in a protest such as this?

*Sir, it is not necessary to say that we are sorry, as I am personally, that action also had to be taken against students in the church. I hope it will never be necessary again—but I hope that churches will help to ensure that it will not be necessary. I hope the Opposition will help to tell students: “Stop tagging along after Fort Hare; stop joining Turfloop in their protests (as they themselves said in their pamphlets); stop doing this kind of thing—it means the downfall of any sign of civilization in this South Africa.”

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from the hon. member for Witbank a statement dealing with matters which are not strictly relevant to the debate this afternoon. It is true that there are questions about the propriety of student behaviour. It is true that questions may be asked about the right of asylum in churches and the degree of co-operation given by churches to students who may be engaged in unlawful activities. Maybe it is so; and for the purpose of this argument, would even be prepared to concede it, if only the Government would come back to the real question which is at stake this afternoon and to which I warn them, the whole country is listening. [Interjections.] They must stop seeking to evade the issue. If they do so, they may do themselves some good in reparation of the harm that was done over this weekend.

Now, Sir, I leave the hon. member for Witbank there. I will return to some of his issues a little later in my speech. I wish to refer in the first place to the official statement made by the hon. the Minister of Police. We heard from him, having given him an opportunity to explain what had happened, to calm emotions and give satisfaction to people whose feelings or bodies have been injured, a long alibi. We heard from him a long self-justification. We heard from him a plausible chain of inconsequential facts, details laden with emotional overtones and tendentious adjectives, designed to put the matter in a good light. I say to that hon. Minister also: The country is listening eagerly and keenly to hear what he has to say in justification of his Government’s action or in defence of what happened on Friday. If his Government condones this, and if it has no word of apology, no word of condemnation, he and his Government must take the consequences. It is a hard thing to say to that Minister, but I am constrained to say that as Minister of Police he shows less efficiency even than as Minister of Economic Affairs. [Interjections.] This, I suggest, is a statement which might almost be ruled unparliamentary, because it is so scathing in meaning!

Sir, we heard a poor catalogue of accusations against these students. Now, let me say again: We acknowledge that there are things going on which need to be taken under control, which need to be stopped and which need to be brought under firmer discipline; there are dangerous things happening. But the paltry tale which that Minister told us this afternoon about “kos-huis” strikes, of bunking of lectures, was a tale of petty indiscipline at universities, with which everyone in this House who has been at university in the last 50 years, is familiar, and treats with contempt. Sir, to string these petty facts together in order to build up a plausible case of a deep plot, is to bring the whole thing into ridicule. If the hon. the Minister has real facts—and we believe he well may have—let us hear them, but not this paltry tale of petty “crime”.

Then the hon. the Prime Minister rose, and he distinguished himself this afternoon by making it quite clear that he is prepared to make a strong and “kragdadige” speech on the basis neither of known facts nor of known law. He was not aware either of the facts or of the law. He was prepared to make these statements which, on cross-examination by the hon. member for Durban North, he was too afraid to corroborate, and which he was too obstinate to withdraw. He was in real difficulty, and I do not blame him for now absenting himself. To give one example, he said that, given the opportunity or given his presence on Friday or on a subsequent occasion, he would do again what was done on Friday. Sir, I have here a report from the very latest evening paper. It contains a statement from Brig. Loubser, the Commissioner of the Police in the Western Cape. What does he say? He also knows what happened; in fact, he knows better than the Prime Minister what happened on Friday, and this is what he says:

[Interjections.] Here, Sir, is something like an apology, something like a note of regret, something like a retraction. But the hon. the Prime Minister, who was not here, says that he would gladly repeat it if he had been here, or if the occasion were to arise again. So this is the attitude taken by the Government, and we call the country to witness. No word of regret has been expressed, and there has been no word of compunction coming from that side of the House. There has been no apology, not a single word of apology. There has not even been a word of consolation for those who were injured. There were innocent bystanders, and there is not even a word of apology to them.

The whole Western world faces a common phenomenon, a phenomenon of youthful dissent, a phenomenon in which universities are rebellious, and where young people are rebellious against old institutions. They do not wish to go on with the old conventions, the old customs; they wish to create a new world which they are prepared, if necessary, to bring about by dissent and revolt. Their protest takes many forms; it is motivated by many reasons. I have no doubt that it is true, as has been alleged on that side of the House, that these people are frequently used by communists, by people who plot the overthrow of other countries …

Why do you not condemn them?

These people seek association with the youths who are in revolt. They try to use them, they try to manipulate them in ways which can be subversive, and I believe it is the task of this Parliament to condemn such activities and that it is the task of the Police Force to control and discipline such activities. The question, Sir, is how you do this. Do you do this in a positive way, or do you do it in a negative way? Do you do it in an effective way, or do you do it in a non-effective way?

Sir, in the course of my life I have seen such activities carried on in various countries. In Rome, for example, I have seen the police take action against a mob of 80 000 communists assembled for hostile, dangerous purposes. I have seen the police using fire hydrants, with dyes to stain people’s clothes, to break up meetings of a violent nature, which pale this thing on Friday into insignificance. I have seen the police deal effectively and well with such meetings; I have seen them disperse crowds without inflicting injuries and without recriminations and, most important of all, with the population on the side of the police, laughing with the police and against the communists. This is the way to do it, Sir, I have seen this done in France; I have seen it during the Algerian uprising; I have seen the police take action during the OAS disturbances in Paris, and the police were able to do it in such a way that they retained the sympathy and the confidence of the people of France against the people who were causing the uprising. Sir, I have also seen it happen in England. One also reads of cases where it is done in the wrong way. There was a case not very long ago which horrified the world. It ran round the world just as this incident on Friday will run round the world. At Kent State University there was an up rising; there was disorder; the police overreacted and shot some students. Sir, this has done harm to the image of the police in America but it was more deeply regretted by the upholders of law and order in America than any other action. I say that what happened here on Friday is going to be entirely negative; it is going to alienate the sympathy of the people, and it will in fact cause the sympathy of the people to flow towards these very organizations and serve to cover up their misdeeds. It will cause the sympathy of the people to be rallied on the side of those forces which the Government is trying to combat. Sir, it was an act of the utmost clumsiness; it was an act of the utmost incompetence, and this Government should be thoroughly ashamed of itself. What does it do? It says it is prepared to stand up and be counted; it is prepared to pretend that nothing happened, and that what happened was fully justified.

Now, Sir, I want to come to the men of conscience on that side of the House. There are Ministers who stand up and make public statements and who appear to uphold the forces of democracy. There is the hon. the Minister of the Interior, whom I do not see here now; there is the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, whom I have heard make many speeches in places other than here; there is the hon. the Minister of National Education. Where is he? There is the hon. the Minister of Planning. Do these gentlemen practise what they preach? Do they uphold violence? Are they happy with the condonation that has been given in this House today? Are they content with the apologetic statements we have heard here? Let them stand up and be counted. Sir, I warn them that the country is waiting for them to speak. The country wants to hear them, and they want to hear them in this debate. We are waiting, and they will gain nothing by silence, because silence will be taken as acquiescence and as consent. We wish to hear them in this debate. What are the consequences of what has happened? Abroad. Sir, I assure this House, the consequences will be disastrous. We will have damage done to our image abroad which cannot be corrected by years of effort, years of good works and years of apologies. We will not undo this damage for a long time. Sir, this is a step back greater than the steps forward that the hon. the Minister of Information has taken in the whole time that he has been in office. We have taken a step today which will not be repaired for years, if ever. I can promise him that as a fact. Inside the country what will the effects be? We have alienated moderate thought in this country. There are many people who are middle-of-the-roaders. They are not interested in agitation; they dislike it. They want an orderly and peaceful life. These people treat the Police as their friends and they look to the Police for their protection. Friday’s events caused these people to take sides against the Police and to give their sympathy to people who are agitating and who are seeking provocation. Sir, the whole thing was most unfortunate. I would say that this Government in all its actions, in its economic actions and its political actions, suffers from a dreadful disease which can be described as over-kill. They overdo things, they over-kill. Sir, I withdraw the word over-kill, because it is a neat and efficient word and it indicates a degree of deliberate action. I would like to use the word over-lay, in the sense in which a clumsy, drunken mother overlays her child and smothers it. This is what this Government is doing to this country.

I was actually very surprised when listening to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon. In my humble opinion the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gave a display of ambiguity such as we have very seldom witnessed in this House. He quoted, almost in full, a pamphlet which he claimed was the reason behind this demonstration that was held here in front of the church. He went out of his way to dissociate himself from the contents of that pamphlet and he informed us that the content of that pamphlet, which he quoted to us here, is inflammatory, a pamphlet that wants to promote out-and-out violence in South Africa. That is what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition intimated to us here, and then, after telling us that he wanted nothing to do with that pamphlet, because it wants to promote inflammatory violence, he asked: “But what did your Police do?” I wrote his words down. That is now his view of the S.A. Police, who took action in circumstances brought about by the pamphlet which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition quoted to us. His standpoint in respect of the Police was: “This was a confrontation between inexperienced demonstrators, who were manoeuvred into breaking the law.” I very respectfully think that this evidences a scandalous ambiguity, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must tell us exactly where he stands. Does he stick to what he said in connection with the pamphlet which he says is a completely inflammatory pamphlet, and if people gather on the authority of that pamphlet, must they be dispersed, or does he want to continue with this statement of his that in actual fact the Police manoeuvred the demonstrators into the position where they could strike them?

I say that the Police of South Africa will take note of the words of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition intimating that they purposely manoeuvred the demonstrators into that position. Then he challenges the hon. the Prime Minister. He asked the hon. the Prime Minister where there was any exaggeration in the weekend newspapers? It seems to me the hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not read those newspapers. On the front page of one of the big English Sunday newspapers there is a whole page of commentary by a certain Miss Pamela Diamond. She gives us a terribly graphic picture of what allegedly happened here on Friday and then states that she was also pushed around and struck by a policeman, and then she realizes how far she has gone with the story she is telling and she herself says: “Excuse me, if I sound bitter, but it did hurt.” In other words: “I am now writing under the influence of those blows that the policeman inflicted on me, and now you must excuse me if I go too far in what I am writing because it hurt me.” But let us look at one of the other witnesses. In the same newspaper there was also the evidence of a certain Margaret Ensor, who said the following—

In other words, she is telling the students: See that you get as near to the pulpit as possible, so that it will be a great sin if the Police come and chase us out. Sir, I am sorry, but under the circumstances the hon. the Leader of the Opposition must pardon the Police who were carrying out their duty, because people were using a church to seek shelter after they had made inflammatory speeches. Then the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister why they allowed the demonstration to continue for so long.

Sir, it surprises me that such a question is asked: Why the Police allowed the demonstration to last so long. This happened specifically because this is a democratic country, and because Col. Crous clearly told them that as long as they kept the peace they could demonstrate as much as they wanted to and they could sit on the pavement as long as they were not doing anything; but the moment a student began to make a speech Col. Crous knew it was becoming a public meeting, and after the student had been told to terminate his speech and stop holding a public meeting, Col. Crous gave the command for a baton charge. Now the hypocritical question is being asked: Why did he not issue the warning in two official languages.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “hypocritical”.

I do so regretfully. [Interjections.]

Order! Has the hon. member withdrawn it?

Sir, I withdraw it. It is now being asked why there was not even a five minute time lapse before the charge took place? But what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not want to accept is that these batons are made of soft rubber. There is not a single person who was hurt in this charge.

Wasn’t there?

No, there was not. I challenge you to bring them along here. Next time you will receive a blow and nothing will happen to you either. Sir, that was the right kind of action in respect of those students who overstepped the mark with this inflammatory speech on the steps of the Cathedral. Now the hon. member for Durban North asks us: “Did the Police not practise beforehand with their batons?” But what difference would it make if the Police did practise with their batons? Do they want the policeman to charge, completely unprepared, into a mass of people and hurt them? Must there be no practise? Is there no practise for the Police. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition must not come to this House with ridiculous statements.

Then the hon. member for Von Brandis comes along and, almost in tears, tells us of the repercussions abroad. Yes, Sir, there will be repercussions abroad, and I now want to tell the hon. member for Von Brandis that I am glad there will be repercussions abroad. But do you know what these repercussions abroad ought to be? The repercussions ought to involve countries abroad taking note that White South Africa and non-White South Africa who support legal government, are not prepared to allow South Africa to be turned inside out by terrorism and violence. Let the countries abroad take note of that and let them take note that if people begin distributing the kind of pamphlets that were distributed, the kind read out here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, our Police will have to deal with them in no ungentle manner. And let me now tell that hon. member that if the Police had acted in any other way, the agitators abroad would now be telling these people: You were children, it happened in front of a church and the Police were afraid to tackle you, and the Government was afraid to touch you; now you can begin from the beginning again and you can go from one university to another and hold one demonstration after another. I say I am glad if there are repercussions abroad, and I would be glad if the repercussions were of such a nature as to create the impression that South Africa is absolutely determined that its Government, its form of government and its system will not be overthrown by agitators and crime.

Why do you not get a Judge to inquire into the whole thing?

Oh, shame! [Interjections.] With our own eyes we saw what took place. What took place that requires an investigation to be instituted? Absolutely nothing took place that warrants a judicial inquiry. The hon. Opposition is being absolutely ridiculous with that statement of theirs. Do you know why they have come along with that? Because the hon. member for Houghton is all set to jump in quite unequivocally as far as this demonstration and the conduct there is concerned. That is why the United Party has had a fright. They are now afraid that the Progressive Party will forestall them as far as a certain sector of the public is concerned. Now they at least have to put up some kind of show here. That is why they are coming along here with their show against the Police, but in the very next breath—because they are afraid they will offend the conservative English-speaking sector—they come along with the pamphlet and say they do not like the pamphlet either. That is why I say that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition does not have a political standpoint which he advocates through thick and thin. Until the hon. the Leader of the Opposition works out a proper political philosophy and a proper political standpoint he will continue to put up this lamentable show and he will always come second when Progressive Party representatives jump up here, for they at least adopt an anti-Government, anti-Police and anti-everything attitude.

And anti-you too.

The hon. member for Durban North’s allegation that the Prime Minister is insensitive to people who were hurt and to the pregnant woman who was struck is, I want to say, devoid of all truth. I want to say this to the hon. member: The hon. the Minister said very clearly from his bench, in his speech, that those excessively injured as a result of Police action will be able to pursue the normal channels. The inquiries will be instituted, and if action has to be taken against a policeman who has overstepped the mark such action will be taken. But, in the very next breath I want to add that when our Police take the kind of action they took on Friday, we as ordinary citizens of South Africa want to say thank you to them for proving to the outside world and to those in the country that South Africa is not prepared to allow illegal conduct to change our system here in any way.

Mr. Speaker, I would hate to disappoint the hon. member for Prinshof, so I shall tell him here and now that he does not know what he is talking about. He knows nothing about what happened on Friday afternoon.

What do you know?

I arrived very shortly afterwards and I made it my business right through the week-end to cross-examine numerous people who were present. One thing I do know—Press reports and even the reports of the Police themselves bear it out—is that no “oproerige” speeches were made from the steps of the Cathedral on Friday afternoon. One man had just begun to use the loud-hailer when he was told by Col. Crous that he was not to use it, at which stage he raised it again and said: “I shall ask the Colonel to explain why it is I am not allowed freedom of speech,” and then there was the ensuing fracas.

For the hon. member to say that an agitating speech was made is utter nonsense. He does not know what he is talking about. The people who were protesting were not terrorists either; they were young students and they were not terrorists. That is another thing … [Interjections.] Thirdly, I would like him to tell me what law they were breaking by being there at all. At the beginning of the meeting the brigadier stated that they may have their meeting, that they may say their say and may stand on the steps as long as they did not break the law. He said that as long as they did not break the law and stayed on the steps, they may continue with their meeting.

The colonel did that.

Yes, you are correct; the colonel said that. There was nothing illegal about it and the whole hideous— that is the way I describe it—incident developed later when, I believe, the Police lost complete control. They did not only lose control of the situation, but worse still, of themselves. If one examines the photographs as printed in the Press, one sees nothing but grinning pleasure on the faces of the Police as three or four of them are beating up a student lying on the ground. I am not interested in what the hon. the Prime Minister said this afternoon, because he was not here either. He was busy elsewhere, although he hastened to defend the Police, as he would do. He is never happier than when he has a truncheon in his hand metaphorically or otherwise. I was not remotely surprised to hear the hon. the Prime Minister say that in no circumstances he would allow a judicial committee to be appointed to go into the happenings of Friday afternoon. I will leave him aside. I will say to the hon. the Minister who spoke this afternoon that he made a statement very quickly after he said that he would have the matter investigated immediately. I saw the hon. the Minister on Friday afternoon and he said to me that he would have the matter investigated and that he would make a report to Parliament on Monday afternoon. To my astonishment, on Saturday morning, the hon. the Minister had already made a statement to the morning Press in which he said that the Police had acted with great restraint or rather, with great tolerance. All I can say is that he could not have done very much investigating. He could not, for instance, have had talks with the lady Mrs. Van Oudenhove whom I found at the charge office on Friday evening with an enormous lump on her forehead, having been struck down by a baton. I have no doubt of the fact that she will lay a charge. She happens to be somebody who was walking past. She remonstrated with the Police about the way in which they were attacking a student, and she was immediately struck on the head by one of the policemen. She will probably lay a charge against the Police. I doubt whether the hon. the Minister has discussed the matter with her. It is also interesting to see how the reports of the Brigadier and the Colonel conflict as to who gave the order, or did they give the order to charge at more or less the same time? Perhaps the hon. the Minister will also answer a question that he would not answer before. That is whether a warning was given before the baton charge took place.

I shall answer that question.

Right; then I will ask him a few others. Does he seriously believe that there ever was a necessity for a baton charge? Were the actions of the students so provocative and so lawless that it was necessary at all to have a baton charge? What violence on the part of the students necessitated such action? When the students were breaking up their stand, and it was simply a stand, at the steps of the Cathedral, steps which since time immemorial have been used for protest stands, peaceful protests—the steps of the Cathedral have always been used for that by various organizations—and went into the Cathedral (they had obviously abandoned the steps) they were pursued and beaten up. Why was it necessary to pursue them and beat them up inside the Cathedral? Perhaps the hon. the Minister will answer that.

Inter alia, I would like to know what the certain “incidents” were that he referred to in his Press statement that compelled the Police to take action. Was it the fact that Col. Crous was attacked? If Col. Crous was attacked, I wonder whether he was not attacked by one of these plain-clothed thugs that the Police seem to be employing to assist them in their operations. I agree with every word that has been said on this side of the House about the dangers of using as policemen unidentifiable thugs who can act any way they like. I want to know since when the South African Police Force has in fact allowed itself to descend to such a low level of behaviour as was done in this case. [Interjections.] I say that those leather-jacketed bully-boys have no place in our Police Force. They are unidentifiable and they are not under any authority. Then I should like to ask the hon. the Minister who spoke this afternoon, what is the relevance of the birth place of the students who were arrested. What is the relevance of where they come from?

If it is not relevant, why do you worry about it?

Well, I am worried about it because the hon. the Minister produced it as his No. 1 important fact in justifying the Police’s action. I consider it completely irrelevant. Presumably, the students come here either to study or they come here as immigrants or they are the children of immigrants. Does it mean that if people come to this country as immigrants, they are not ever allowed to take part in any political action? Are they prohibited from taking part in political activity? What absolute nonsense.

Then, of course, we had the usual story. It was all engineered by communists! I want to know what proof the hon. the Minister has that any of this was engineered by communists. There are radical students at our universities. It would be very surprising if there were not. Every university in the world has its quota of radical students. But the hon. the Minister and hon. member opposite completely misjudge the situation if they believe that the present unrest at our universities is caused and is maintained by radical students only.

And organized.

Or organized. Let me tell that hon. member that there is widespread unrest at our universities, the White English-speaking universities and, I might say, even to a certain measure at the Afrikaans-speaking universities and at all the ethnic universities. There is a rising grounds well of discontent at those universities. It is there for one very obvious reason. It is not because these are revolutionaries, not because they are radicals, but because, in the case of the White students, they are deeply upset and worried about what is happening in South Africa. They are well aware of all the racial injustices that are taking place in South Africa and they hate it. The Government should be aware of the fact that they are growing to hate the Government too. They intensely dislike these injustices. They know perfectly well that their fellow students at the ethnic universities are not only treated as over-grown schoolboys, but that these people are denied equal opportunities throughout their lives. They feel guilty about this and they do not like what is happening in this country. This week of protest that has been taking place, has been a perfectly legitimate protest; it has been in the cause of education for all the children of South Africa. Let me say un-equivocably that is a cause that I support wholeheartedly. I have always been in favour of education for all our children in South Africa, free and compulsory education just as soon as it could be implemented. I believe that is a just cause for the students to be fighting for. It is right that they should be fighting for that. This Parliament deceives itself if it believes that the only cause of unrest, the only cause of protest meetings and the only cause of protest stands and processions is because the students are the stupid puppets of communists, of terrorists, of outside influences, of evil influences from the “buite-land”. So, as I said, I do not believe for one moment that there is anything relevant about the birth places of those students.

I also notice that every time anybody mentions “We Shall Overcome”, which, I believe, was originally a negro spiritual, they put it on the same basis as The Red Flag. They think nothing could be worse than that students should sing “We Shall Overcome”, but if the hon. members only knew what idiots they make of themselves in the outside world by this sort of nonsense. “We Shall Overcome” is an accepted student song that is sung at every university throughout the world. It is sung all over the world and no intelligent authority at any university takes any notice of it.

They sang it at Harris’s funeral.

I do not care where they sing it. They can sing it at all sorts of places.

They will also sing it at your funeral.

They might even sing it at my funeral. I want to say that a couple of years ago there were student demonstrations and protests here and on the Witwatersrand. Cape Town students stood as is their wont with placards on the Cathedral steps just as they did on Friday. Everything passed off perfectly peacefully. I went to see it and the colonel in charge acted with the greatest good humour and tact. I spoke to the gentleman myself and he said: “Mrs. Suzman as long as they stand there as far as I am concerned it is perfectly all right.” They had their stand.

How long did they stand there?

They stood there for the whole period of the lunch hour at least. Everything was perfectly peaceful. The Commandant was there with his policemen around, and nobody did anything and the students dispersed. I had occasion in this House to praise the tact and the good humour of the Commandant. I did not do the same of the man in charge on the Witwatersrand, because at the time the students of the Witwatersrand were demonstrating he turned it into a para-military exercise and called out the armoured cars. A great deal therefore depends on the man in charge, and if the man in charge had enough good sense to handle things properly, all this could have been avoided. To have ordered a baton charge without any warning and to have beaten students up in full view of hundreds of passers by, would then not have happened. Fortunately this does not depend on what I say or even on what other members in this House say, there were hundreds of eyewitnesses. The public of South Africa is disgusted with what happened in Cape Town on Friday. Hon. members live here in a sort of cocoon. They don’t know what is going on in the outside world. They haven’t the slightest idea. They go around patting each other on the back and saying what wonderful “kragdadige” fellows they are while they do not know what the reaction of the public outside is. I say the public is disgusted with what happened in South Africa on Friday afternoon. I want to say that the Police, as the hon. member for Von Brandis said, in South Africa could learn a great deal about the handling of crowds from the Police in other countries. I have watched time and again on television in England the handling of huge crowds in Trafalgar Square and at Grosvenor Square. The Police use the utmost restraint. Their objective is to avoid violence at all costs. But not here. The sturdy guardians of law and order pile in with enthusiasm against a crowd of unarmed, defenceless students. I say that this country is fast losing its balance. That starts right at the top with the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister of Police, not to mention, of course, that model of self-control, the hon. the Minister of Defence. All of these gentlemen set the example. They condone these acts of violence and that permeates through the whole echelon of the people who should be maintaining law and order. One gets it in the Army, where in lectures given to recruits in the Army, students are quoted as being the enemies and this is how one handles them. Every day one gets somebody or other making a speech against students, the terrorists, the underminers, the communists, the subversives. So, naturally, when young policemen go into action against students all they can see in front of them are enemies of South Africa. [Interjections.] “That’s right,” says the hon. member behind me. These young students feel strongly about their democratic values, and that is what everybody in this House has forgotten. They value certain democratic values which hon. members on the other side have long ago put from them in the interests of self-preservation. In the interests of self-preservation they have put behind them many of the Western democratic values, which students all over the world, including thank God our students more particularly at the English-language universities, continue to cherish despite the fact that they have had 23 years of Nationalist Party indoctrination at the schools, over the radio, and by virtue of laws which educate them to think in a certain direction. They have managed to maintain their respect for the Tenets of Western democracy.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Does the hon. member agree with the contents of the pamphlet read out to us here by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition? That is the first part of the question, and the second part of the question is what part she thinks that pamphlet played in this demonstration.

I cannot answer the second question of the hon. member because I do not know what part the pamphlet played, but I do know that there has been a whole week of protest at all the universities about the education system. As the hon. the Minister mentioned, I took part … [Interjections.] I will answer the first part of the hon. member’s question. There are certain things in that pamphlet with which I disagree, but there are also things in that pamphlet with which I heartily agree. I heartily agree that wages are too low, and that there is exploitation of the workers. I do agree that everybody should have the right of collective bargaining and I do believe that everybody should have meaningful political rights. I cannot remember the rest of the contents, but I do not agree to changes by revolution. I agree with many of the other things in that pamphlet, and I say so quite frankly.

I should think I made it very clear over and over again in this House. As I have said, there is unrest on our campuses throughout South Africa, and I am surprised that the hon. the Minister of Education is not here … Ah, he has arrived in the nick of time. What a perfect entrance! Well done! I am glad to see that the hon. the Minister of Education is here. He is the guardian of our universities and I want to know if it does not occur to him that there is serious cause for concern because of the unrest at our universities and that it cannot just be dismissed as the work of agitators. Something has to be done and done quickly to try to stem the growing unrest, particularly at the ethnic universities. At the moment that unrest is particularly centred around the way in which students are treated by the administrators of the universities, but the basis of the unrest is much deeper than that. It is the lack of equal opportunity both before and after they get to their universities and when they leave the universities. It is in order to associate themselves with the unrest and the feelings of the students at the ethnic universities that our young students at the White universities are demonstrating.

I do not believe that we have had any sort of satisfactory explanation from the hon. the Minister of Police at all. I do not believe that he has answered any of the relevant questions. All that every single member on the Government side has stood up to do is to justify the violence used by the Police on Friday. I want to say that earlier this afternoon there was another demonstration on the steps of the cathedral. I was there and there were thousands upon thousands of citizens there as well. I could not count them, but there were scores of policemen. Certainly, for the first part of the meeting until about two o’clock there were no incidents whatever. People went inside the cathedral when they were asked to clear the steps. The policemen in charge exercised restraint and there were no baton charges, to start with anyway. Later, I believe, the crowds were dispersed by means of tear gas. If hon. members opposite do not believe that there are thousands of citizens, not terrorists, not communists, not radicals, who are furious at what happened to the young students on Friday afternoon, are deceiving themselves. They should have come to the Cathedral today. They should make it their business to get out of this Chamber, out of this insulation that they enjoy inside this Chamber, and get outside into the real world and see what is happening in South Africa today. [Interjections.] Well, it seems to me that I am the only one that is moving around. Admittedly I did not go to the rugby on Saturday. I thought that perhaps there were more important things to do. It is perhaps because we lost the rugby test that everybody on that side is in such a bad mood. Of course, losing the match is a national calamity. That is really important; it is a real national calamity. I am very sorry about that, but nevertheless leaving that national calamity to one side, I hope I will get some answers from the hon. the Minister of Police.

Mr. Speaker, I was afforded an opportunity earlier this afternoon of giving a very detailed account of all the events as I see them, and consequently I do not consider it necessary to go into all these events again in detail. But in the course of this debate certain questions were put in regard to which I think it is my duty to give a greater measure of clarity. Right at the outset this afternoon I said that I did not want to go into the specific details of the matter, because various cases were pending. I am afraid that the debate has by now taken its course to such an extent that no cognizance whatsoever has really been taken of these circumstances. Nevertheless, I shall in spite of that attempt to furnish a reply to certain of the questions.

The hon. member for Houghton said, inter alia, that she was not in favour of a change through revolution; but now I want to ask her, in all honesty, whether that is not what she encouraged this afternoon.

What nonsense!

Sir, she knows as well as I do that it is the aim of these people to bring about a change by way of revolution. After all, the accepted and traditional procedure is what the hon. member is going to adopt tomorrow evening. A meeting has been called in the Cape Town City Hall, where she is going to appear as one of the speakers. She is at liberty to persuade the entire country and all its people to vote for her party if that is what she wants to do. Surely that is the democratic way. But any demonstration contains the elements of revolution. If the hon. member were to be honest with herself, she would admit that the people did not come and stand at the top end of Adderley Street simply because they wanted to stand there peacefully and quietly, and the other people could simply walk by. Why should it in fact be the top end of Adderley Street?

They want other people to see them.

Yes, there you have it! Other people must see them; a crowd must gather; there must be traffic congestion; there must be problems and difficulty and blood must flow. If the hon. member and the professors and students of Cape Town University want to demonstrate, let them go to the Rondebosch Common; let them have all the cameras, newspapers and banners there. If they do that in silence, surely it is not a disruption of order. But the hon. member knows as well as I do that that is not their intention. On these steps of the Cathedral in Cape Town there is hardly room for 200 people to stand. This afternoon they want to come and stand on those steps with 2 000 people. Where did they want to stand? I do not want to digress too far on this matter, but I know that the hon. member never speaks well of the South African Police. She spoke here this afternoon of thugs.

Yes, the un-uniformed ones.

Now I wonder whether the hon. member has considered whether it is right and decent to speak ill of people without knowing who they are, what kind of work they are doing and what instructions they received. She spoke here of the “grinning pleasure on the faces of the Police”.

Yes, look at this picture!

Sir, perhaps the hon. member sees that there; I do not see it there. The Police have a duty to perform. Let me tell the hon. member this: It is not a pleasant duty. It is quite often an unpleasant duty which the Police have.

The hon. member came to speak to me on Friday afternoon, and she was very excited and upset. She then told me that she had subsequently, after the events, turned up there and given me the information which she had received there, and so on. I then told her that I would make a full statement on the matter in this Parliament this afternoon, because the hon. member for Durban North had already told me at that stage that he would put a question. After this, later on in the evening, because I had found it necessary to send at least a little of the correct story into the world, I changed my mind and made a brief general statement in which no details on the actual facts appeared. I changed my mind.

[Inaudible.]

Women can change their minds, and we love them for it. Why should I not change my mind? I changed my mind, and I made a brief statement on the Friday evening. The hon. member took this amiss of me, and she stated in the newspapers that it was strange that I had changed my mind. Sir, I say again that I think that under these circumstances the Police acted with great tolerance. This demonstration on the steps began at 2 p.m., and these events only took place at 20 minutes to 4. For one hour and 40 minutes the Police were in fact being provoked.

What provocation?

Sir, I quoted from a newspaper report this afternoon all the unpleasant things which were said to the Police there. The Police were being provoked during that time. The students would not listen to the instructions of the Police, and I think that the Police displayed the greatest measure of tolerance. The hon. member asks me whether I think this baton-charge was really necessary. Yes, I think so. Sir, I sketched the circumstances to you this afternoon. The hon. member came to tell me on Friday evening that the students were standing there protesting peacefully and quietly; that young Kemp wanted to speak through the loud-hailer; that Col. Crous then told him that he must not speak through the loud-hailer, and that the Police then, without any reason, fell on the students and struck them. That is the story the hon. member heard, but I have furnished an explanation here this afternoon of what happened. Not only was Col, Crous struck from behind, but he was prevented by this crowd and by the students from performing his duty, and that is why it became necessary to take action against them. But over and above that, there was at that stage complete confusion; to a certain extent a state of chaos had developed among this crowd. Violence was already being used before the Police took action, and under these circumstances the Police had to use violence. Sir, if the Police had not used violence, can you imagine what would have happened there? The entire situation would have deteriorated into disorder. For a matter of five minutes there was a charge, and the Police used batons, and with that the whole matter was settled.

Don’t you even know what happened?

Why did they enter the cathedral?

The hon. member is asking me why the Police entered the Cathedral. Sir, I have already replied to that this afternoon. Why did the culprits run in there if the Cathedral is sacred ground? I say again that if the Cathedral grounds are made available for such things, then they must be prepared to suffer the results.

May I put a question to the hon. the Minister? I just want to ask him …

Order! The hon. member must wait until the Chair calls upon him to speak. The hon. member may proceed now.

May I ask the hon. the Minister whether I heard him correctly; did he say that the beatings lasted for only five minutes?

Yes, my information is that the actual baton-charge lasted for approximately five to six minutes.

Your clock stopped.

The hon. member apparently knows what happened there. I invite him to come and give evidence. There will be cases before the court; he can come and give evidence there, and if he wishes to take any action, he can lay a charge.

Sir, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked who actually gave the orders. I shall try to sketch the picture for you as I see it. Col. Crous went up to Kemp and told him that he could not hold a meeting there; that he could not speak through the loud-hailer; that it was a contravention of a law. I shall inform the hon. members in a moment in terms of which law it was an offence. Col. Crous told him that he could not speak through the loud-hailer, and that he should stop doing so, but Kemp did not stop doing so; he carried on again and addressed the crowd through the loud-hailer. Col. Crous then went to speak to him again, and when he would not listen, Col. Crous went up to him and took him by the arm, because the colonel had to do something; he had to arrest him because he would not listen, and because he had contravened a statutory provision, and when the colonel did this, he was struck from behind and prevented by other demonstrators from performing his duty; from doing what he intended doing, and at that stage Brig. Lamprecht, who was near to him, saw that a state of disorder was developing, and he then told the Police to take action. At more or less the same time, strangely enough, Col. Crous instructed the Police to clear the steps; those were his orders. That is what happened there. I hope the hon. the Leader of the Opposition now has the picture which I have. Strangely enough, these two Police officers realized the need for Police action at more or less the same time and then gave their orders in this connection.

Who was in command?

Col. Crous is the District Commandant. Sir, the hon. member for Durban North and the hon. member for Houghton have asked why the Police did not first issue a warning. The Police were not acting in terms of the Riotous Assemblies Act. The Riotous Assemblies Act provides that a warning should first be issued. The hon. member for Durban North referred to these statutory provisions, but he was of course completely wide of the mark …

As usual.

… as usual. The action taken by the Police was in no way in terms of the Riotous Assemblies Act. The action was in performance of the duties of the Police in terms of section 5 of the Police Act. In this process Col. Crous warned Kemp in terms of the Cape Regulation 1938 published in Provincial Administration Notice 337 of 1946, dated 15th August, 1946, and issued in terms of Ordinance 10 of 1912, which relates to the holding of public meetings without prior authorization from the City Council. Col. Crous told Kemp that in terms of that provision he was not allowed to address the meeting. Sir, I also want you to understand the further picture which this gave rise to. Here Kemp is standing at the side of the street; perhaps he is standing a little way off the side-walk, but if he speaks through the loud-hailer, the entire street becomes part of the meeting; then it is no longer a private action on his part; it becomes a public action, even if he was standing a little way off the side-walk, on private property. I hope that this ignorance which was displayed in respect of the actions of the Police will now cease to exist. Col. Crous, on a number of prior occasions, told Kemp that he should stop addressing the crowd through the loud-hailer, but when it became necessary to take action, no further warnings were issued, nor was it necessary to do so.

Would it not have been sound common sense to warn the people first?

I wonder whether the hon. member has any idea of what was happening there at that stage. No one could hear himself speaking. How could one then, on top of it all, tell those people that they should be careful, they would be beaten? Besides, there was no time, blows were already being struck. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton the following question: Those innocent young students of hers, what were they doing with a loud-hailer at such a quiet and innocent demonstration? [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

Order! The hon. member for Houghton must contain herself.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has asked how many policemen were there. The information furnished to me by the Police is that there were approximately 30. As far as plain-clothesmen were concerned, there were police officers in plain clothes.

How many?

That I cannot say. They were part of the 30, but my information is that they did not have batons. On that point I shall still have to obtain full information. Now the hon. member for Wynberg comes along and asks why we did not use tear-gas. I want to tell her that tear-gas is not always the practical means to use. [Interjections.] If the hon. member would only give me a chance to explain she would be a little the wiser afterwards. Tear-gas is not always a practical thing to use. In the circumstances prevailing on Friday afternoon there were a group of students against whom action had to be taken. It was not necessary to take action against a vast crowd. There were quite a number of innocent people standing in the vicinity, and in fact the traffic had already been disrupted in the process. But there was no reason to disperse the crowds which were standing around. That is why tear-gas was not used, and also because tear-gas would have greatly inconvenienced the innocent people in the vicinity.

But you did administer beatings.

Yes, because we wanted to beat the students, because the students were the culprits and we did not want to penalize other people because we had to take action against the students. But this afternoon it was different. There tear-gas was in fact used at the top end of Adderley Street, but this was because thousands of people had gathered there as a result of prior notice and reports, and we were compelled to disperse the crowds, not because we wanted to take action against them, but because we simply could not allow such a crowd consisting of thousands of people to gather at the top end of Adderley Street. That is why we used tear-gas this afternoon, to the very great inconvenience, I am afraid, of the people who were in that vicinity; I am sorry about that, but we had no choice.

Your actions were a punitive measure, not a preventative one.

Then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition came along and asked the very strange question: “Why did they not take action earlier?” Now, what should they have done earlier? I ask you! I explained to you. The students were standing there, and they invited more and more people, as simply happens, to stand closer, and this crowd began to gather. But I have also said that the students were careful not to commit any offence. They stood there, and it was only later in the afternoon that the incident with the loud-hailer occurred. Although they were causing disruption at the top end of Adderley Street, they were being careful. What should we have done earlier? Did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition want us to hit out with the batons earlier, when there were fewer people? The hon. member said we should have taken action earlier. The Police warned them. [Interjections.] The hon. members on the opposite side mentioned the harm this will do overseas. Surely they tend to see only the harm which will be caused overseas to the exclusion of all else. They would prefer to avoid the harm which will be caused overseas, if there should be any, which I do not believe. I think the rest of the world will realize that here in South Africa there is a Government which takes action against elements such as these. When Israel takes harsh action against hijackers, that is fine, that is all in order. Israel is appreciated for doing so, but when we do so, it is not appreciated.

That is hardly analogous.

I happen to have the figures here of what it costs us to keep students at university. It costs the State R8 000 to have a doctor qualify—and then I take it that he has to get through every year. This is the allowance to a university. To have a dentist qualify, it costs R8 600. A teacher costs us R931 per annum. One can deduce from this that it costs the State and the taxpayer approximately R1 000 per annum to keep a student at university, and in addition this Government, we on this side of the House, have given them the vote. All those students sitting there, who are South Africans, have the vote. I take it that all of them are older than 18 years, and for that reason all of them have the vote. But the hon. member does not want them to use their democratic vote. Oh no, they must cause disturbances and waste their time at university.

What happened today? The hon. member and other hon. members are sitting comfortably on these green benches, but what happened on Friday and again today to a certain extent is erupting in other places as well. I have received word, and here I want to refer to what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, that matters are not being exaggerated. It has been established that a rumour is going the rounds of the Pietermaritzburg campus that one of the Cape Town students was killed during the events last Friday. Even now this is happening at Pietermaritzburg. Before every class commences, students are asked to stand for one minute in silence in honour of the student who has supposedly died. [Interjections.] Then I also have the names of the lecturers who are responsible for these students now having to rise to pay their last respects. In Johannesburg, where no permission was granted today for the students to hold a procession, at the University of the Witwatersrand, 150 to 160 students went in procession to St. Mary’s Cathedral—again to a Cathedral.

They should rather go to church on Sundays.

In spite of the prohibition, they marched to St. Mary’s Cathedral, and I can state that quite a number of them have already been arrested.

What about Stellenbosch?

In conclusion I want to say—and this I want to emphasize— that if there are people who have complaints and who think they were unlawfully assaulted, they should come forward with their complaints. If the hon. the Leader of the Opposition can produce these people who have such knowledge—I know of members on this side of the House who witnessed the events from start to finish and gave me a percise version of what occurred—they can testify in court. If the hon. member has people who can testify, I can tell him that these cases will be brought before court, and that they will have an opportunity to go and testify there. Only they must not expect us not to do our duty in regard to these elements, who are becoming a danger to South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard from that hon. Minister merely a series of shuffling and evasive statements that have done nothing to dispel the concern of this side of the House. He indeed did nothing to dispel the tone that was introduced into this debate by two hon. gentlemen over there who did not even speak. I am sorry that we have not had the opportunity of hearing them. I refer to the hon. members for Stilfontein and Harrismith. When my leader, in his speech, referred to the fact that a pregnant woman had been beaten and ill-used, those two hon. gentlemen almost laughed their heads off. I say in fairness to the hon. member for Harrismith that when he saw I noticed his laughter, he straightened his face. What about the hon. member for Stilfontein? He thought this was nothing more than a big joke. I am also sorry that he has not come into the debate to explain his conduct at the scene of the trouble Friday afternoon. Perhaps he can tell us now. Did he encourage the Police by shouting “Slaan hulle! Slaan hulle! ”

You were not there.

I was not there but it has been reported to me by several people. He can say “yes” or “no”; it is a simple fact.

Prove that in court!

Did he say “Slaan hulle! Slaan hulle!”? He denies it, or does he not? No, far too many people saw him. He still has an opportunity to come into the debate and explain his conduct. The hon. member for Harrismith can also come into the debate and tell us what he finds so amusing at the thought of a pregnant woman being beaten by policemen.

I want to challenge the hon. member to say those things outside this House!

I wonder too if we are going to hear from members of the Cabinet. What about the hon. the Minister of the Interior? Does he associate himself with all that he has heard this afternoon, especially the words of the hon. the Prime Minister? He has been sitting very silently, and I would be surprised …

What are you inferring?

I would be surprised if he did say that he supported everything that he had heard from that side of the House and that he supported the conduct of the Police on Friday afternoon without question. That is what I am insinuating. In fact, I am not insinuating, I am saying it. What about the hon. the Minister of Planning next to him? Does he associate himself with everything?

I am one hundred per cent behind …

He is shaking his head, and I hope he is going to say something. Oh, the hon. Minister says: “Yes,” so he does associate himself with everything. I would like to hear what the hon. the Minister of National Education, who is not here at the moment, has to say about this. He was here when the hon. member for Von Brandis asked him what he thought of the whole affair. I would also very much like the views of the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

And the Minister of Finance.

I am told that we can add the hon. the Minister of Finance to the list. Some of them seem to be very amused. The hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and his Deputy Minister of Bantu Education seemed to think that it was a great joke when this debate started. The hon. the Deputy Minister was full of laughter …

Oh, come off it!

He was full of laughter, especially when the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was speaking. Dealing briefly with the hon. Minister of Police, I am terribly sorry that he would not allow questions that the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Umbilo wanted to put to him. As we know, these two hon. members were at the scene, the hon. member for Umbilo while it was happening, and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout a short while later. I think the questions that would have been put to him could have clarified the position very much indeed. But, as we have seen, his was essentially an evasive speech. I just want to touch on a few things that he said. Talking of the demonstrators, he said that the aim of these people was to bring about change by revolution. Is he serious about this? If he is, then is the answer to this charge of bringing about change by revolution, having a baton charge after an altercation over the possession of a microphone? No, that does not wash. If his charge against these people is one of subversion or wanting to bring about change by revolution, then that is not the way to go about it, and he knows it. I think he came very much closer to the truth a little later on when he said: “Ons wou die studente slaan. Ons wou die studente straf.” As my hon. Leader put it, the police, on all the evidence that we have seen so far, have set themselves up as the witnesses, as the judges and as the executioners. That is precisely what that hon. Minister was saying. In saying that, he betrayed every element of the cause that the speakers on the Government side have tried to present to this House this afternoon.

Just one other thing to show how far out of touch he is. He said the “slanery”, the baton charge, lasted only five minutes. He invited hon. members on this side of the House who thought otherwise to give evidence to the contrary. If ever anybody in this House this afternoon supported a case for a judicial commission, this was it. If he wants to give hon. members on this side of the House a chance to testify as to what they saw and when they saw it, he, as a lawyer, knows that the only proper venue would be a judicial commission. I shall come back to that in a moment.

We have also had a strange number of contradictions. Earlier in this debate the hon. the Prime Minister said that as far as he was aware, Col. Crous did issue a warning to the people before the baton charge took place. A few moments ago we had the hon. the Minister explaining to us why no warning was given. He said that it was because this baton charge did not take place under the Riotous Assemblies Act. Who is right: the Prime Minister or that hon. Minister? What are they trying to tell this House: what are they trying to tell the country? No, I think it is quite clear that no warnings were given, and warnings should have been given. That is another thing that could be fruitfully investigated by a judicial commission.

What evidence has this House deduced this afternoon? What seems to have emerged is prima facie evidence of undisciplined Police behaviour and. in some cases at least, wanton and indiscriminate beating of men and women, some of them journalists who were merely there in the execution of their duties. I shall come back to this a little later. This may cause merriment to hon. gentlemen opposite, but it was no cause for merriment to the people concerned, and these included journalists representing the newspapers also of that side of the House.

Where is the merriment on the opposite side?

Had you looked a moment ago, Sir, you would have seen the hon. member for Stilfontein laughing and …

He may have been laughing at something totally different.

Can’t you ask him why he was laughing?

Where is the merriment on the opposite side? The hon. member is reflecting on hon. members on the opposite side, which I cannot allow. The hon. member may proceed.

I want to come to the question of our request for a judicial commission. The hon. the Prime Minister, when he spoke, dismissed this plea. He said he was not going to waste his time with it and that he was going to refuse it. He referred casually to “’n klein bietjie geweld”, a small amount of force or violence that was used. He also made the point—and I am surprised that a man of his political experience should make it— that a judicial inquiry would give some people the opportunity to gain even more publicity for the Police violence than we have seen already. I reject those reasons; I do not for one moment believe that those are the true reasons. The true reason is that the Prime Minister is afraid of the outcome of a judicial inquiry. I submit to you, Sir, that he does not have the courage to place the issues before an independent Judge and to hear that Judge’s findings.

Digressing for a moment, he replied to a few interjections from this side of the House about another judicial commission that had been appointed. This was at a time when he seemed to have no worries about appointing judicial commissions. I refer to the judicial commission he appointed so quickly into the Kolver affair. I think if ever he learnt his lesson about judicial commissions and the impartiality of judicial commissions, this was it. Then, after the Kolver inquiry, as this House well knows, had returned findings that were politically unacceptable to him, he repudiated the judge in this very House. Not only did he repudiate the judge, but he made some scurrilous accusations …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “scurrilous”.

I withdraw the word “scurrilous”, Sir,

He knows very well that he ought not to use it.

He made some extravagant and uncalled for accusations against the hon. member for Newton Park and me.

He would not repeat them outside.

We challenged him to repeat those accusations outside and, in fact, one of his newspapers had the audacity to make similar accusations outside of the privilege of this House. What happened? Well, it is a matter of record. We sued them and they paid damages. They apologized to us and paid costs. That is why the hon. the Prime Minister would not follow up his accusations. That, I submit, is the sharp lesson he learnt about judicial commissions. They sometimes produce very awkward findings.

What would a judicial commission be called upon to investigate here? After all, we know there is a prospect of criminal prosecutions, but there is a large area which should be properly investigated which would probably not be dealt with by a criminal court. We have the question of whether the Police should have issued warnings before they had their baton charge; we have the question raised by my hon. leader, of whether the Police should have held a baton charge at all. Nothing we have heard this afternoon has thrown any light on this. I should think that if the hon. the Minister’s conduct follows what we have seen this afternoon he is going to steer well away from this very thorny point. While the hon. the Prime Minister was speaking, and he seems to have been the one who in his quaint way has told us more about this even though he seems to know less than anybody else, he asked us a few things. He said “Where do we stand,” “When are we going to decide where we stand,” and “Where?”. I should have thought that it is a matter of record by now that we in the United Party stand for law and order …

But!

…but this requirement applies as much to the Police as it applies to the public at large. The Prime Minister said that he had gained the overwhelming impression that my leader stood on the side of those who were against the Police. Did he not understand the whole point of this debate? We are vitally concerned about the Police, because after all do they not rely on the goodwill of the public to a large measure for the success of their work? What we are concerned about is the type of leadership that is being given to the Police by the hon. gentleman opposite. That is the real burden of our case. There is one other thing the hon. the Prime Minister mentioned, and I want to touch on the Press a little later if I may, when he talked about “trial by newspaper”. Does he not believe the pictures he sees in the newspapers? Does he believe that they were fabricated? In his own newspapers he saw pictures that quite blatantly make out a case, a prima facie case, of gross misuse of force by the Police.

In the time available to me I want to come back to the hon. the Minister of Police and deal with a few of the things that he said in relation to the Press, just to indicate what utter nonsense that Minister was speaking when he answered the question put to him earlier this afternoon by the hon. member for Durban North. Among other things, and here that hon. Minister was dealing with the attacks by policemen on newspaper people who were present on Friday afternoon merely to carry out their duties as reporters or photographers, he said that people who do not associate with demonstrations of this kind should stay well away. How can he conceivably expect this to apply to newspaper people, the very essence of whose work brings them very close to the centre of things? He said, and here he addressed himself directly to the newspaper people, that as reasonable people, how could they expect that the Police would recognize them? I do not know what difficulty any policeman should have in recognizing a newspaper photographer, for example. What is the problem there? I should have thought by now that newspaper photographers are readily recognizable if by nothing other than the cameras they are carrying. The fact that a person is taking pictures, I should imagine, probably indicates more than anything else that he is not actually involved in any demonstration. Now what about the reporters who were on the scene? We have been told that some of these reporters displayed their Police identity cards, but that this did not help them in the least. They were still assaulted by the policemen, and of course we also have prima facie evidence of women, one photographer and one reporter, having been assaulted in the course of their duties. That hon. Minister seemed to have relied very heavily, as far as the attack on the Police were concerned, on an anonymous message that was transmitted to the Cape Times yesterday and published in their edition of this morning. If I may say so, it makes interesting reading; but it is stretching journalistic ethics to a very far point when a newspaper in trying to present both sides of the story is prepared to publish at that length allegations by an anonymous telephone caller. I think that, if anything, the Cape Times must be complimented for the manner in which they have gone out of their way so far to try to present both sides of a most unsatisfactory picture.

There has rightly been a reaction from journalists about the attacks made upon them on the scene. The president of the Society of Journalists, Mr. Strydom, was perfectly right when he criticized the Police in very severe terms for the action they took against journalists on the scene, when he pointed out that cameras were confiscated, films whipped out of them and some journalists assaulted. Sir, I think, in fairness to the Police, that they themselves must have known, as they did this, that what they were doing was illegal. You see, there is an agreement between the Press and the Police, an agreement that sets out in very clear terms what is expected of both sides. I might say here that I was a party to the negotiation of this agreement a good number of years ago with the Commissioner of Police, and in a very co-operative atmosphere. The agreement states—

This is the duty of the Police—

Now, Sir, I think it can be said quite safely and fairly that the Press last Friday stuck to their side of the agreement; but I am afraid that it cannot be said that the Police stuck to theirs. There seems to have been a disturbing tendency over the years—and we have seen it highlighted in this event— on the part of policemen to believe that Press photographers should not take photographs at the scene of disturbances. Down the years I have been concerned with a good number of these cases. We have had instances of policemen beating newspaper photographers, of policemen confiscating their cameras, and destroying or spoiling their films, but never have I known of a case quite as serious as this, and I think it can be fairly said that this incident on Friday represented a low water mark in the relations between the Police and the Press. I hope that the Commissioner of Police and the hon. the Minister of Police will now do their utmost to try to repair the damage that has been caused.

We have just seen an exceptional display of bravery from the hon. member for Kensington. He himself acknowledged that he was not present at the time of the incident, and on pure hearsay evidence he has made all kinds of accusations against the hon. member for Stilfontein. In addition he said that the Prime Minister is afraid to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry. Sir, the Prime Minister stated very clearly that lawsuits may in fact be instituted; complaints can be made and evidence can be submitted. Sir, what more does one want in a democratic state? Charges can be laid; evidence can be furnished, and if need be an appeal can be lodged. This is as democratic, even more democratic than a judicial commission. [Interjection.] That hon. member knows nothing about legal matters; he must keep quiet. Sir, the hon. member for Kensington followed a typical United Party pattern here today. It is true that he did speak each time of “prima facie evidence”, but he had already found the Police guilty, because he spoke of “undisciplined Police behaviour”. The whole trend of his speech lacks any sign of prima facie evidence; the whole trend of his speech was convicting the Police.

Sir, I want to go further and say that the United Party’s display here this afternoon is typical of the pattern they are following these days. In their enthusiasm to decry the National Party Government they do not care what methods they employ and what they say in this House to decry the National Party and its administration of the country. But, Sir, there is one thing they do not take into account; they do not take into account how in the process, they are besmirching South Africa, locally and abroad. What did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition do here today? He gave a long list of evidence here—it is also hearsay evidence, because he was not present— about what the Police are alleged to have done, about violations they are alleged to have committed. He did say in one sentence, it is true, that he did not know whether this was so because he was not there. Sir, what will the outside effect be? The pressmen, the “stringers” in South Africa who send news overseas, will just mention these allegations of Police violations and make no mention of the fact that the Leader of the Opposition said he had not seen it with his own eyes. But, Sir, I have a much more serious charge than that against the United Party. The United Party is definitely adopting tactics whereby they wish to intimate to countries abroad that there is no longer a democratic Government in power here in South Africa.

[Inaudible.]

I shall come to the hon. member for Wynberg in a moment; she must just be patient. Sir, in that connection they are following, as they usually do these days, certain thinkers in liberal English Press circles. In this connection I want to refer to a scandalous article that appeared in the Sunday Times of 14th May. 1972, written by a certain Donald Woods, “editor of the Daily Despatch, East London.” The heading of this article is “Nats and Communists have much in common”.

That is right.

That hon. member, who is always ready for gossip-mongering, says: “That is right”.

He is dead right.

The hon. member for Wynberg also says that is right. I am sorry she is now leaving the Council Chamber, because I specifically want to come back to her. Here the hon. gentleman states—I am sorry, he is not honourable—here Mr. Donald Woods states the following—

Further on he states—

Sir, it is of course very clear that this gentleman knows absolutely nothing about history. How did Communism take root in Russia? After the Tsar was overthrown a Liberalist called Karensky, not a Communist, came into power in Russia early in 1917, and it only took a few months of liberalistic government before the Communists came into power. Sir, today I want to say this to the people of South Africa: If you hand over the reins of Government to the United Party, then you are handing over the reins of government to a Karensky rule. It will be a liberal government, a government that is weak at the knees, and South Africa would then go the same way Russia went. Sir, how does the United Party tie up with Donald Woods? The United Party has purposely followed the same pattern this sitting. The hon. member for Wynberg, who has now left the Council Chamber in spite of the fact that I asked her to stay, made untrue, serious accusations against a policeman in this House. She made use of the privilege of this House to do so. She would not say those things outside. The Police therefore have no chance as far as she is concerned. I do not want to dig up all the old scores, but the main speaker on justice on the Opposition side said here this year that the courts are now the only fortress against chaos in this country, a clear insinuation that this government consists of a lot of fascists and that the Police use Gestapo methods. In the Justice debate I read the quotations of the main speaker on the Opposition side from the Sunday Times of 31st October, 1971, in which he intimated and insinuated that the Police use Gestapo methods. This debate is supposed to be conducted in the light of the fact that everything is sub judice. It was clearly said to us that court proceedings are to be instituted or have already been instituted, but in spite of that hon. members on that side came along with nothing but complaints against the Police. That is why I say that as far as that side of the House is concerned the Police have no chance at all. Although it is camouflaged by saying that it is prima facie evidence, the whole tone of the Leader of the Opposition and all his speakers indicates that the Police are guilty of the grossest atrocities. I want to say from this side of the House that we are grateful to the South African Police Force for what they are doing in these distressful days. In spite of provocation, and in spite of danger to their lives, on this specific day they protected life and property at several spots in the most exemplary fashion. From our side we thank the Police very much. This does not mean that members on this side of the House are saying thank you to every policeman. There have been cases in the past where individual policemen have perhaps committed offences, and this side is not condoning that. But this side is not prepared to associate itself with the creation of a general feeling against the Police, as the Opposition has done here today.

The allegation, which is of course totally unfounded, that this side of the House wishes to create the impression that the Government of South Africa is no longer democratic but in fact fascist, is one with which I intend to deal in my speech, and I want to say only this at this stage. If anyone is trying to create that impression about the Government of South Africa, then it is the Government itself by its deeds. Nothing that we say could do it better. Nothing we say on this side of the House could do more to create the impression of a fascist Government than the deeds and words of the members of the Government themselves. What we are trying to do is to show the world that South Africa is in fact still democratic. That is why it is so important to us that when something happens which shocks the conscience of thinking people, we feel and believe that it should be properly and impartially investigated, that the details should be examined and exposed for the world to see. If there has been a fault or mistake it should be dealt with, and if there has not been then the world can see there has not. It is this attempt to hide things, to cover things up which does so much to harm the good name of South Africa.

Can you do that in a court case?

The hon. member knows you cannot bring out the facts of a total incident in the sort of court case which will flow from this incident. I have no time to deal with that at length but common sense should show the hon. member that there is no sort of charge which can be laid which will bring out a decision from the magistrate on whether there was a warning before the charge, or whether the amount of violence used was excessive or more than was needed to deal with the situation. Those are not things on which a court must decide. These are issues which can only be decided on a broader field by investigating the incident as a whole. The issue, and it is a simple issue, is whether too much unnecessary force was used where other methods could have achieved the same effect. The answer came from the hon. Minister of Police who said: “Ons wou die studente slaan; ons wou hulle straf.” In other words, the object of the exercise was not to break up a gathering, was not to stop an illegal act and was not to clear a crowd, but it was to punish people. That is something which will do more harm to South Africa and the good name of South Africa than anything which we on this side of the House can ever say.

This has been a sad session for South Africa, a sad session which started in hopeful speculation. There was hopeful speculation that we were to enter a session of “uitwaartse beleid”, of “verligtheid”, a new era in politics. The Government had won the election, they were powerful and now we were going to see a “verligte” approach. South Africa looked with hope to the six months that are now behind us. At the end of it, instead of seeing those hopes fulfilled, we end this session in the shadow of the truncheon, the truncheon that has brought joy to frightened little men, to frightened little minds which see the weapons of violence and force as a substitute for policy and reason in governing a country.

Hear, hear!

When you substitute force and violence for reason and policy and argument you are admitting that your case is bad—that you have no case to argue. You are then exhibiting the signs of fear—of your inability to carry out the responsibility of government. We have for nearly six months been trying to concentrate the attention of this House on the problems of governing South Africa. We have tried to bring Parliament back, over and over again to the issues of government, to the failure of Government policy, to Cabinet weaknesses, to maladministration and to the lack of control by Cabinet Ministers over their departments, of which the Agliotti affair was an example. We tried to show the failure of the Government to take corrective action when things were in fact found out and brought to light. We have pointed to their failure in the economic administration of South Africa, to the problems of the ordinary man, the cost of living, of housing, to the struggle of the ordinary worker and family man to exist, to the problems of the pensioner and the problems arising from the lack of compassion of this Government. This is a government with no compassion towards people. We have pointed to their failures in the field of policy, the policy of the Government towards the urban Bantu, the policy towards the Coloureds, towards the finding and the creating of jobs for people of all races in South Africa. We have pointed to the collapse, in reality, of the Bantustan policy and the dangers which it is creating in sowing, inspiring and stirring up Black African nationalism. These and more issues of this nature are what we have for week after week, for nearly six months, been throwing across the floor of this House, seeking an answer from the Government. Instead, we found first of all, a Government obsessed by by-elections, a Government placing short term votes for their party before the welfare of South Africa. It is a government which lost its head over by-elections and which reverted to elemental Nationalism, which revived dead and buried issues, issues which we believe should have remained dead and buried. It revived racialism between White and White, “Afrikanerhaat”; it revived the worst of the old “swartgevaar”, the fear policies of the Government, the “gogga-maak-vir-baba bang” policy and even got back to reviving from the grave the memory of Jopie Fourie. So we have had a debate with two angles to it. [Interjections.] This is not a soap-box, for the information of the hon. the Minister of Sport and Recreation. This is the Parliament of South Africa. I am trying to show how when we deal with the issues affecting South Africa, a frightened Government, frightened because of by-elections, got back to Jopie Fourie, stripped from itself the mask of unity, the mask of “uitwaarts” and “verlig” and showed itself exactly what it is, namely a Government afraid of itself. Nationalist Ministers spoke from the heart this session. I am doing just that now. If I speak with feeling, it is because we have as much a right to speak from the heart …

No, you speak from a soap box.

…to speak of the things that matter to us as any Minister on that side of the House has. I believe that much of the political fight in South Africa is unreal, because many good and sincere people are missing the fundamental issue. They are missing the cold hard fact of life, which is that there is only one real political fight in South Africa. That is between the authoritarian approach of the sectional political party now in Government and the conservative South Africanism of the United Party. All the rest is idle theory. The hon. the Prime Minister said this afternoon that he was “sat en moeg” of all sorts of things.

*There are many things I am also sick and tired of, and I want to mention a few of them. I am sorry the hon. member for Houghton is not here. There are many things I am also sick and tired of, and one of them is the theoretical debate which is being conducted in clubs and in so-called intellectual circles about the so-called problems of South Africa—debates which have nothing to do with the reality of South African politics, because the real fight is between that Nationalist Government and this United Party. It is between the conservatism of this party as against the sectionalism and the radicalism of that party now in government. But the greatest friends of that side of the House are those who advance these idealistic arguments. What is more, the extremists of South African politics … [Interjections.] Yes, the longhaired exhibitionists are the best friends of that side of the House, because they help to keep them in power.

†I want to say quite clearly that I am talking about the long-haired exhibitionists. I am not talking about the genuine young South African who follows current fashion. I am taking about the sort of people the hon. the Prime Minister talked about today, the sort of people my leader talked about today—the people who are trying to stir up trouble and unrest in South Africa. They are taking with them innocent and decent young people. It is not a question of how a man wears his hair; it is how his mind works. When I refer to the exhibitionists, I refer to how their minds work. Those people are the greatest friends of the Nationalist Party. I am also intolerant and angry when I hear talk of revolution, talk of destroying the social structure of South Africa and talk of overthrowing everything we know in South Africa. That annoys me as much as it annoys any Nationalist. What happens, therefore, is that, when the average South African hears this and he hears the Nats saying “Ons sal julle beskerm”, they tend to move towards the Nationalists. Therefore what these people are in fact achieving, this lunatic fringe of politics, is to strengthen the hand of the Nationalist Party. I want to say to them that they have the right to their opinions, but I am tired of the supercilious superiority which many of them exhibit. Their ill-mannered intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with them and their intellectual arrogance is part of a new cult that is the “in-thing”. It is the “in-thing” to be a “thinker”, a “moulder of thought”, a “rugged individualist”, a person who is prepared to stand above—to stand by his principles. As long as their names are in lights, it makes them happy, but it is not helping to solve the fundamental problems of South Africa, because these lie between that Government and this United Party. As long as all their theoretical poppycock, as if at a high school debating society, can be talked in a nice cosy atmosphere and they can have a lot of underpaid servants waiting for them with a meal when they get home, they can talk in between of how badly the Black people are treated. That will never solve anything. What will solve the problems of South Africa, is when we get rid of the arrogance of that Nationalist party’s thinking. That is all that matters for South Africa because, until we do that, we are going to go on and on along this road.

The Nationalist Party has no monopoly on patriotism, no monopoly on loyalty to South Africa and no monopoly on being good South Africans. Whilst they hold out this “We will protect you” banner, I believe that they are in fact undermining our security at every step. They are undermining our security, and there are times when I get desperately worried. I am not one of those who have said South Africa is a police state. I have always been one of those who have denied it. I have always been one of those who have said that this country will change its Government through the ballot box, through a democratic process. I have always been one of those who have appealed to South Africans who do not like this Government to back us through the ballot box so that we can have democratic change of Government.

Have you changed your mind now?

When I see the look on the faces and hear the expressions of members who sit here this afternoon, when I see the way in which some members reacted to the debate this afternoon, it sends a cold shiver down my spine. I promise you there were faces on that side which frightened me this afternoon with their hatred and total subjection to the emotionalism of the issue that was before us; people who were unprepared to accept or tolerate any question that was asked or doubt that was expressed.

The trouble is that there are no members on that side of the House who saw the history of the last 25 or 30 years being made. They have read it, they have studied it, but in a purified form. We on this side of the House watched most of it being written. We were there ourselves; we were in countries like Italy, where from top to bottom, you could never find a fascist. There Was never a fascist in Italy; they had all been anti-fascist and anti-Mussolini. I was in Austria and there everybody had been against the Anschluss; not a single Austrian ever wanted to join up with Germany. In the house in which I was billeted, in Klagenfurt I, listened to the tears of the mother of the house whose son had been killed on the Eastern front, but who had never been a Nazi. But I happened to open the trap door in the roof and there was not just a Nazi, but an SS uniform hanging, an SS uniform which was not just a form of simple indoctrination, but one worn of choice by one of the “herrenvolk” of the Nazis. In Germany you could never find a Nazi. The point I want to make is that we saw this history being written. I believe there were originally very few people who were truly Nazis, who in their hearts were truly Nazis. But they allowed themselves to drift along, because they believed everything they were told. They lost the ability to question. They had lost the ability to question their own leaders. They had lost the ability to doubt the direction they were following. What makes me afraid is that we too are becoming blind yes-men to an ideology and we are losing the ability to question ourselves, our direction, the things we are doing, or above all the way we are doing them. When I hear people who can cheer over the beating of women and say “Serves them right”, and when I hear people who say these things are good, that it is a good thing that this happened, I begin to wonder whether we have lost the ability to question where we are going. Nobody ever believes that it can happen here. “It cannot happen to us” and “it could never happen to South Africa.” It will not happen as long as we are awake to self-criticism, alive to the ability to test and question ourselves and each other both here in this House and outside this House. That is why we on this side of the House believe that the right of opinion, the right to express an opinion, the right to peaceful protest, are things that must be protected and not destroyed. When you destroy those things you destroy the ability of a nation to question which way it is going. In heaven’s name, have we not a better choice before South Africa than these two fearful extremes that are held out to us, namely the total disintegration, the splitting up policy of the National Party, the division of South Africa on the one hand or the abandonment of leadership of the Progressive Party and those to the left of it. Two impossible and unacceptable directions.

Only the United Party have the answer.

But there is a better road, and only the United Party is on it. The reason we have it is that ours is an evolutionary policy, able to keep up with the events and the changes of the times. I do not know what all the excitement is about when somebody talks about change in the United Party. We are a party of evolution. We have fundamental principles, but the machinery which applies those principles must be modernized and kept up to date. The trouble with that Government is that it never moves with the times. It is anchored in outmoded and outworn policies. At our national congress last year my leader appointed committees to investigate aspects of policy to bring them up to date. I myself moved a resolution, which was accepted, emphasizing the direction of the United Party towards a race federation. That is the difference. We in the United Party continually think and we are continually thinking about the problems and the modifications of detail which must be made to make the application of principles realistic. We have basic fundamental principles which have never changed over the years. The first of them is the maintenance of White leadership and with it the acceptance of a common destiny for all the races in South Africa under the control and authority of one central government. We strive for self-administration for each racial group within its own area, dealing with its own affairs; representation in a central Parliament; a voice for all race groups with consultation through statutory Standing Committees and consultation at all levels with all races at all times. This is why we in the United Party offer South Africa a practical road, because we are practical and realistic. We think all the time, and we apply to these principles the necessary practical adjustment of policy which is necessary from day to day and from year to year. This is the only road which offers an alternative to the hopelessness which flows from either the Government or the extreme left. That is what South Africa will yet realize, as long as we learn not to lose our ability to criticize.

Mr. Speaker, I fully agree with the hon. member for Durban Point: The United Party think; as a matter of fact, they have been thinking for 25 years and have come no further yet. They are always thinking about a new policy. Directly when that new policy is announced, they start thinking again to change that policy. However, Mr. Speaker, I move—