Mr. Speaker, at the conclusion of the debate last night, I was outlining the United Party’s attitude to this Bill. I had indicated that while the party stood for the maintenance of law and order and the safety of the State, was against sabotage and against Communism, it was nevertheless unable to support this Bill because the Bill had gone too far in a number of respects. The first of these was that it deprived the ordinary citizen of the protection of the courts and put them at the mercy of arbitrary decisions of Ministers in such a way as to threaten the freedom of law-abiding people. I pointed particularly in that regard to the vast new powers granted the Minister of Justice of sentencing people to a civil death and indicated that even the old powers which he had had could now be exercised over a new class of people, namely these in respect of whom he was satisfied that they were carrying on activities which might further the objects of Communism. I also pointed to the vast new powers in respect of gatherings which the Minister was asking for under this Bill, social and political, and over any type of gathering. I pointed out that these powers were asked first of all under the Suppression of Communism Act and that he had also taken additional powers in respect of gatherings under a proposed amendment to the Riotous Assemblies Act. I suggested that he will land in the position, if this Bill becomes law, where he can exercise virtually absolute power over gatherings in South Africa, social as well as political, provided, of course, that he can establish that somewhere in South Africa there is someone whom he is satisfied is engaged in activities which may further any of the objects of Communism. I had passed to that part of the Bill creating a new crime which I had contended was so widely defined that it would endanger the lives and liberties of innocent people without any intention whatsoever to subvert the State. I pointed out that in sharp contrast to the position in the war years, the position under this Bill will be that where on proof of certain minor, wilful and wrongful acts, the onus will be shifted from the State to the accused, the onus which the accused will have to discharge will be to prove that objectively regarded the offence was not calculated and was not committed with the intent to bring about a number of situations some of which have nothing whatsoever to do with sabotage as popularly understood to-day or as understood during the war years and the regulations which applied at that time. The choice as to whether an accused is to be charged with the new crime to be created by this Bill or whether he is to be charged with the wrongful act which is an ingredient of that crime, lies with the Attorney-General. The Minister has indicated that he is happy that that should be so; he trusts the Attorney-General. That is so, Sir, but he does not say that he, the Minister, controls and directs the Attorney-General and that he has the power to reverse his every decision. That means, Sir, that that decision is one which may become a political one and which, in the hands of an unscrupulous Attorney-General or a Minister not bearing the best interests of the State at heart, may very easily be abused. Let me give you an example, Sir, of the sort of thing that can happen. What has it to do with sabotage in the ordinary sense of the term if the accused has damaged the property of any individual with the object of causing him substantial financial loss? Under this clause he may be found guilty of sabotage and sentenced to a minimum of five years’ imprisonment. Let me give you another example, Sir. What has it to do with sabotage as popularly understood, if an individual destroys a candidate’s posters during an election with the object of furthering the achievement of a political aim, namely the election of his own candidate and the furtherance of that policy for which that candidate stands? Yet in both cases the decision as to whether that accused person is to be charged with sabotage and be liable to a minimum penalty of five years and run the risk of being on trial for his life, lies not with the court, but with the Attorney-General, the Attorney-General under the direction of this Minister. When that is done the onus will lie on the accused to establish an innocent intent objectively regarded.

Do you want me to take that away?

There are a number of things I want of this Minister. I will detail them later.

Tell this House how you will define sabotage.

I will tell the House how that hon. Minister should behave, Sir, if we are to combat Communism in South Africa. He must not be so impatient. He is always a couple of jumps ahead of everybody. I must say this for him, Sir, he does think—sometimes.

Let us come back to the Bill, Sir. I want to say at once that it is no answer to me to say that we must trust the Attorney-General. As set out in this Bill, the law is so widely defined that the Minister cannot deny that, if an Attorney-General is incompetent, if he is over-zealous, or if he is unscrupulous, you can have results which are not in the desire of the Minister, and should not be part of any law of any country.

Then, Sir, I want to take a further point. Unless I read this Bill incorrectly, I do not see what protection there will be for strikers engaged in ordinary normal strike activities in South Africa. Because, under this clause, any person participating in a strike who tampers with or puts out of action any property, will be guilty of sabotage, unless he can show that he had no intention objectively regarded and that his action was not calculated to bring about any economic change in the Republic or to cause substantial financial loss to his employer. Now, Sir, what hope will a striker have of getting an acquittal under those circumstances?

You can leave that to me.

There we go again, Sir! We must not discuss it in this House. It is going to be discussed in Marks Building between the Minister of Justice and the trade unions. But we in this House are entitled to know what the intentions of the Minister are in respect of this clause. As this clause stands at the moment, that is the result that can be achieved. We are certainly not going to pass it if we believe that that is the result which can be achieved. Actions of that kind have been normal incidents of strikes ever since it has been recognized that there have been combinations of workers who, under circumstances recognized by the law, could combine and take action to further their economic position.

I want to say, Sir, that, having looked at the definition of this clause, having looked at the way it is set out and what the hon. the Minister has attempted to do, it is so loosely defined that it is inevitably going to lead to bad decisions. And hard decisions and bad decisions, Sir, make bad law. We are certainly not prepared to see bad law put on the Statute Book in terms of this clause as it stands at the moment. I am going to go further. I am going to say that there are other difficulties about this clause. You see, Sir, once the accused is charged with a minor offence and the Attorney-General decides that he will charge him with sabotage, he is deprived of his right to be tried by jury, he is deprived of his right to be tried by assessors. He will be tried by a Judge alone. Whether that happens or not depends entirely upon what the Attorney-General decides. The trial may be held at any place under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. I want assistance from the hon. the Minister there. I will be glad to have his attention on this issue. Does that mean that the Press and the public will be admitted or not? Because this is something different from the ordinary procedure set down under the Criminal Procedure Code. Thirdly, Sir, one is faced with this that, if the Attorney-General decides to indict for sabotage, the accused can be embarrassed by being deprived of his right to a preparatory examination. I know that in the magistrates’ courts there is no preparatory examination and summary justice is dispensed. But, Sir, we know that in serious charges—and remember the minimum sentence is five years, that is above the jurisdiction of a regional court over which a magistrate presides—there are preparatory examinations. But here he is to be deprived of the right of a preparatory examination and of the right of knowing what case he has to meet. I do not know whether the law is still the same to-day, Sir, but I know that when I was practising it was a very usual thing that if evidence was to be adduced, not adduced at a preparatory examination, the other side was always given notice and given a copy of the evidence. It seems to me that this is a very strange embarrassment to which a man should be subjected on a trial where the minimum sentence is five years, just on the decision of the Attorney-General, as to whether it should be sabotage or not, and on a decision of the Attorney-General as to whether he will allow a preparatory examination or not.

One is faced with something else in respect of this matter. The accused may well find himself in the position that, in order to disprove the intent that would make out a crime of sabotage as defined in this Bill, in order to discharge the onus now placed upon him by the State, he might have to prove and admit another intent. Now, Sir, is there any provision which prevents the State from using any statement of that kind in a trial against him in a subsequent trial for another offence in circumstances in which a confession would not have been acceptable to the courts in the ordinary way? I appreciate that when he is charged with this crime no lesser a verdict is competent. Therefore, it is technically fair and above board that he can be recharged for a lesser crime afterwards. But the difficulty arises that he may have given evidence there in an attempt to disprove the intent and to discharge the onus placed upon him which would make him guilty of an offence in respect of which he could not have been convicted ordinarily unless he had made a confession in terms of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code.

There is another difficulty which arises, and that is one which would seem to indicate that upon a trial under this clause a juvenile will not have the normal protection which he has under the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Code. Sir, I am indebted to the Minister, if he is correctly reported in the Press, for that view. But I think we should have clarity on that subject. But if it is correct, it would mean that a juvenile would be subjected to the punishment normally meted out only to adults both as to certain circumstances of punishment and certain circumstances of the trial. I must say, Sir, I have seen few attempts to define a new crime so unsuccessful, so inexact, so wide, so liable to abuse as this attempt by the hon. the Minister in respect of this problem. I want to tell him, Sir, that, as far as we are concerned, we cannot accept such a bad piece of legislation, such a loosely defined law, so easily open to abuse.

Those are some of our objections to the Bill. There are other objections as well, Sir. And that is that under this Bill the Minister takes the power to suspend the protection which the law gives to the ordinary person and to substitute for it government by decree all over South Africa when there is a state of emergency in any one district. I know the hon. the Minister will say that he prefers to extend only a portion of these emergency regulations instead of extending the emergency regulations themselves and declaring a state of emergency over South Africa. But you see the opportunities for abuse, Mr. Speaker. Because a state of emergency is declared in one district the hon. the Minister with the Cabinet—they have to make the regulations—can enforce regulations which will suspend the effect of the ordinary civil law in certain respects throughout South Africa. We know in certain respects the Minister can act on behalf of the Cabinet in an emergency under the Public Safety Act. We know those regulations have to be tabled in this House. We know what the safeguards are. But nevertheless we feel that that is a power which is quite unnecessary and unreasonable. In a state of emergency the Minister can apply his regulations, outside of that he must stick to the ordinary criminal law of South Africa and not take special powers outside of an area where the maintenance of law and order or the public safety is in danger.

When you read this Bill, Sir, you are left with one abiding impression, and that is that the hon. the Minister is creating the impression that there is a permanent state of emergency in South Africa. The Minister has asked for so many powers which normally are only granted in times of emergency. He is not asking for them for a limited period, except in respect of the 12-day detention clause, he is asking for them permanently. He is creating the impression that a state of affairs exist in South Africa which make it necessary for him to have emergency powers permanently. It seems to me, Sir, that it creates the impression that this is nothing more nor less than a confession by the Government that it can no longer control the situation by using the normal processes of the law plus the extreme powers which the Minister has already taken under the special Acts to which I referred last night. Why otherwise ask for these powers, Sir? Powers over and above those which have brought about the position which according to the Government has changed from the explosive situation which the then Minister of Justice spoke about in 1950 to the calm, the quiet and the peace which according to the hon. the Minister of Justice exists to-day. You see, Sir, the fact is this: Either the calm and the quiet and the peace exist, in which case he does not need additional powers, or it does not exist, in which case he is misleading the public. My own belief is that this Government is bound to fail if it continues on its present course. My own belief is that it is bound to have to ask for new powers continually; it is bound to do so because there are certain fundamentals in combating Communism which this Government does not seem able to grasp. The first of those is this, Sir: You cannot fight Communism by negative measures only.

When can we get that truth home to this Government? It has been proved in every country in which there has been trouble with Communism that you cannot fight Communism by negative measures only. You have to get to the root causes for Communism. Look at the countries where Communism has succeeded of its own accord, and not as the result of conquest or occupation. You find that it has only succeeded of its own accord in countries like Russia, China and Cuba, where there was object poverty of the masses and the people were kept almost in a state of servitude. Communism has succeeded in all those countries despite the most despotic powers wielded against it by the rulers at the time. One can take little comfort from the fact that this hon. Minister is asking for despotic powers as well. The result may be equally disastrous here as it was in some of those countries. We should get down to the root causes of it. By contrast, if you examine the countries where Communism has failed and where it has gained the least foothold, like the U.S.A. and Britain, where there is a high standard of living and security for the citizen, and an absence of despotic power—indeed, it is where people are happy, where the Government, instead of being a persecutor or a gaoler, becomes a protector of the people … [Interjection.] Can you imagine any Government which is not unhappy asking for powers of this kind? Can you imagine any people who are going to be happy when these powers are used against them? Sir, you would expect a wise Government to learn from the lessons of other countries, and you would expect that it would set as its first task the removal of poverty and the creation of a sense of security for everyone. Indeed, you would expect that a wise Government would not only make the removal of poverty its first target, but it would attempt to show that it can do it very much better than Communism can do it anywhere in the world. You would expect it to make its second target to give to every inhabitant of this State the sense that he or she is privileged to be a member of the State, and that he has duties towards the State. I am sorry to disappoint the Minister. I said duties, not rights. [Interjection.] I must give the Minister an elementary lesson. The vote is a right, loyalty is a duty. [Interjections.] The policy of this Government is directly the opposite to that. It deliberately sets about causing the majority of the citizens of this country to feel that they do not belong to South Africa, that they are citizens of a foreign State created to symbolize that they are not wanted in South Africa, which to me is courting disaster. While the Government continues along that road and there are threats to our security, the Government will have to come back again and again, as it has had to do in the last 14 years, to ask for more severe and greater despotic powers on every occasion. We warned the Government in 1950, when it came with the Suppression of Communism Act, and subsequent events have proved how right we were. We warn the Government again to-day, and it is my great fear that we shall be proved correct again. We warned them in 1952 that you could not fight the ideology of Communism without having opposed to it an ideology which is equally attractive and offered a better way of life than Communism itself.

In other words, race federation.

The Government’s real enemy is not so much Communism as African nationalism, and if that is true, as I suspect it is, that axiom is even truer. Then I want to say this to the Minister and to the Government: You are not going to destroy African nationalism by calling it Communism. All you are going to do by dubbing it Communism is to run the risk that it will get powerful allies amongst your worst enemies and that it will grow much stronger than it would have done had you recognized it at the start for what it was. No despotic powers which this Minister takes under this Act will take the place of an acceptable ideology which is opposed to both these ideals. What is this Minister offering, and what is the Government offering? It is offering an outlet for Black nationalism for a minority of the African people. It leaves the majority of the Black population frustrated and rootless in the White areas of the Republic outside the national homelands; and may I remind them that such a frustrated proletariat is the classical example of the tilth on which the weed of Communism flourishes. How much stronger would their position have been if, while accepting the diversity which exists in South Africa, which is characteristic of South Africa, they could offer a plan which could create out of that diversity a greater whole bound together by a common patriotism of all the people. How much stronger their position would have been if they could have shown real examples of what they are doing to combat poverty in South Africa. How much stronger if they could have told us what they are doing to increase the security of the people of South Africa and give them a sense of belonging. How much stronger their position if they could have brought them all together under a federation of the races, inspired by White leadership, in which there was a proper respect for the dignity of the individual, proper provision for consultation at all levels, and in which these people were given a share in our civilization without having to sacrifice that civilization to either Communism or African nationalism, as may be the inevitable result of the course which this Government has followed. I move.

I second the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I think we all agree that we are living in serious times. Not our country but the whole world is living in serious times, and because that is the position I think the time has arrived for us to consider things calmly and that we consult with each other as to how to meet the various problems. I think it is necessary that we view the position calmly, make preparations and support one another. I do not think we should allow Albert Luthuli and the Progressives and the Liberals to prescribe to us how we should act inside and outside this Parliament. I think we should approach the position from certain basic facts. The communists are preparing themselves—that is an acknowledged fact—in an attempt to overthrow orderly government here as well as in the rest of African by the year 1963. Because that is the position I was very disappointed in the attitude which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition adopted last night in this debate. We realize, of course, that the Leader of the Opposition cannot support the National Government, nor do we expect him to do so, but we at least expected him to take a middle course at this time. But he has adopted a completely leftist attitude. The Leader of the Opposition made the statement that we could not fight Communism by means of negative actions but that we should also act positively. I agree wholeheartedly with him, but the difference is this. What do we regard as positive action against Communism? As the Leader of the Opposition has said, this Government regards the creation of a healthy climate in which everyone can live according to his own way of life, economically as well as politically, as positive action. That is why this Government has seen to it that this country progressed economically in respect of every member of the population, as no other Government has ever done in the past. That is why this Government has seen to it that the development should be such that each one will have his own area where he could also enjoy his own political rights. The difference is apparently this that with positive action against Communism the Leader of the Opposition means that we should ultimately, here in our own area, give the right to the non-Whites under a system of race federation to govern the Whites in South Africa. I maintain that the entire approach of the Leader of the Opposition is based on false premises because his whole argument against this Bill was based on an attitude as though this Bill was aimed at the innocent individual. When you look at the Bill in the light in which it is intended to be regarded, namely that its target is the guilty person, every argument of the Leader of the Opposition falls away, because it is exactly the object of this Bill to protect the innocent person and to ensure that the order to which the innocent person has become accustomed throughout the ages is preserved. I am as disappointed as I am because it was clear from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition that he and his party have allowed themselves to be carried away by the Liberals. I think I should give an example, Sir. When notice was given of this Bill the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker), a person who views things in a calm and collected manner, made a certain statement. The hon. member said that, although the Opposition had not at that early stage made a thorough study of the Bill, and although he could not say what his final attitude would be, although it did contain certain principles which they would oppose, “personally I see nothing wrong in abolishing preparatory examinations for crimes of this sort. It may be necessary to avoid situations such as arose in the treason trial. Mr. Tucker thought, too, that the proposal to provide the death penalty for juveniles convicted of sabotage might be acceptable, provided it was left to the discretion of the courts”. But then the Liberals started to come forward and those people who think along progressive lines, and we had in the first place the following statement by Dr. Steytler, the Leader of the Progressive Party—

Hear, hear!

There you have it, Sir! He was followed by Alan Paton, the Leader of the Liberal Party who said last night in Johannesburg that the Sabotage Bill was a Nazi measure and that he did not know how else to describe it. It was only after these statements by the Liberals that we noticed the change of front on the part of the Opposition, on the part of the younger members of the United Party towards that of the Liberals. The hon. member for Musgrave (Mr. Hourquebie) then made the following statement—

Hear, hear!

There you have the “hear, hears” again, Sir. That statement by the hon. member was followed by the speech which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition made last night, a speech which was firstly based on false premises and secondly a speech in which he on behalf of the Opposition rejected the entire Bill with its principle. In reply to an interjection by the Minister of Transport last night that the Opposition could not point the finger to a single person against whom this Bill had been wrongly applied, the Leader of the Opposition said yes, but the listed persons were not known; that they were on a secret list. But if that is so and if the Leader of the Opposition wishes to protect the interests of the innocent people he and the Opposition have been neglecting their duty shamefully. During all the years that the Suppression of Communism Act has been on the Statute Book, one Minister of Justice after another, as well as the present Minister, have tabled banishment orders in accordance with the law, in which the names of the various persons have been made known. Did the Opposition ever, in their serious endeavours to protect the rights of innocent people, try to ascertain who the people were whose names had been tabled? And those are the watchdogs of the innocent people, Sir! In these circumstances it does not avail members of the Opposition to try to tell the world that they too are against sabotage, against force and against Communism, because it is action which counts; the public of South Africa expects action when they need to be protected against this sort of crime. I say that it is quite clear from the attitude of the Opposition that their standpoint is one of two things. The standpoint of the United Party is either that they do not care what happens to the country as long as they con promote the interests of their party, or on the other hand, the second choice—and I personally believe that is the position—the United Party has full confidence in the National Government that it will maintain order in the country in spite of all the noise which they are making. And because they are fully confident that the National Party will maintain order they think that all that is required of them is to continue to do their own humble little job, namely, to make it unnecessary for the Progressive Party to exist by becoming more progressive than that party themselves. The Leader of the Opposition complained and said that powers were being taken to restrain freedom of gathering. Why does he adopt this attitude? Surely this Government has never exercised the power to prohibit any innocent gathering. It is true that it has used them to prohibit illegal gatherings. The Leader of the Opposition pleads that we should continue to allow meetings to be held on the Parade and on the steps of the Johannesburg City Hall, gatherings which have always been a source of annoyance to the public, gatherings which have always specially been held with the object of stirring up feelings. He pleads for that. He objects to the extension of the 12-day rule for a further year; he says that there has been no proof of communistic threats to necessitate that. Has the hon. the Leader of the Opposition forgotten about the riots and the bomb explosions which we had a short while ago? I wish to leave the objections of the hon. member at that for the time being. I will deal with them further during the course of my speech.

I just want to react to this one point: The Leader of the Opposition stated that we were placing South Africa in a difficult position in the eyes of the world by acting in this way because we were creating the impression in the world that the position was unstable here and that that was the reason why these measures were necessary. But the world knows, and the people on whom we wish to make an impression of stability know that the communists are concentrating mainly on the breaking down of law and order on the Continent of Africa, and consequently also in the Republic of South Africa. That is why the countries on whom we wish to make an impression wish to see a Government here which will maintain that order, a stable Government which is prepared to take action to combat communist infiltration. What impression does the hon. member think is created in the world if the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa refuses to allow the Government to take power unto itself to take quicker action against unlawful organizations which, simply by changing their names, simply continue with their undermining activities? If the Leader of the Opposition continues to say what he said last night namely that they had often supported this Government in placing legislation on the Statute Book which would enable it to act forcibly when necessary when times were dangerous, but that they voted against the principle on every occasion, when we discussed legislation on the suppression of Communism what impression does that create in the world outside? I maintain that far from it that we are harming our country in the world outside and placing it in a difficult position, it is the Opposition who. by adopting this attitude, is beginning to create the impression that they do not want action to be taken against Communism. I say it is necessary for us to look at the circumstances which prevail in this country and at the pattern which Communism follows.

A study of the methods of the communists, methods which they have applied successfully in other countries, shows that when they want to conquer a country they concentrate more specifically on a programme consisting of four phases. The first phase of their programme is political infiltration, organizations, propaganda and general preparations for the following phase. The second phase is passive resistance and the exercise of economic and political pressure, inter alia, with the assistance of world opinion, pressure which entails strikes and boycotts and unarmed demonstrations. The third phase consists of active resistance by way of terrorism, sabotage and violence on the part of gangs who resort to those unauthorized tactics in order to annoy the civil authorities. In this respect I wish to refer to the problem which already exists in the Transkei. They also wish to confuse the civil authorities, undermine and demoralize them. The third phase can be divided into three stages. The first is blind terrorism in order to make the country and the world outside aware of that resistance, to intimidate the people and in this regard I refer to the cheesa-cheesa letters which many of us have received, and to subjugate them and force them to assist and to co-operate. Then you get the second stage of specially directed terrorism and sabotage, and when I talk about sabotage I want to refer once again to the plastic bombs which we have had, in order to disrupt established authority and thus gain control over administrative functions. The third stage is the taking over of entire areas in the country, areas which are used at a later stage as the bases for the fourth phase. The fourth phase is organized rebellion which may develop into a liberating war actively supported from outside. That is the pattern which has been followed in all the countries where communist revolutions have been successful. We have already reached certain stages in this country. We have had the plastic bomb explosions. When things like that are happening, when even the Argus of 14 May admits that “in South Africa physical sabotage is a fact”, is that the kind of action which you expect to get from a responsible Opposition? It is necessary to take strong action, and as the communists of the world concentrate on the development from the one phase to the other, it is necessary for each Government to take wider powers in order to combat it. It is not correct to say that these powers will be used to turn South Africa further into a police state, as the Leader of the Opposition has said. These powers are being taken precisely to prevent South Africa being converted into a police state and to prevent the rights of the democracy being abused in order to destroy democracy. This argument about a police state is an old argument which no longer makes any impression; it has been used regularly by the Opposition for 14 years and friend and foe admit that nowhere in the world is there a country where there are more freedoms than in this country. We must realize that our criminal procedural law and common law developed at a time when it was necessary to protect the community against despotism but since then our problems have changed; since then it has become necessary to protect the State; and if it has become necessary to protect the State against the onslaughts of Communism it has also become necessary to change our criminal law from time to time to adapt it to the new situation. I agree with the hon. the Minister of Justice that wide powers are being taken here but as I have already said it is necessary to do so in the circumstances in which we are living. Secondly it is very clear that this Bill should be strictly interpreted. I refer for instance to the use of the words “objectively regarded”, in Clause 21 (2), to the use of the words “to seriously hamper … the maintenance of law and order” in sub-section (2) (c), to the use of the words “serious” in (2) (f) and the use of the words “to cause substantial financial loss to any person or to the State” in (2) (g). The way this Bill has been drafted is such that it should be strictly interpreted. But while we are prepared to interpret the law strictly, we must also see to it that it is so wide as to enable us to take action where action must be taken and when action must be taken. Mr. Speaker, sinister motives need not be ascribed to this Government because of this Bill, because I think the development of the entire political pattern in this country has shown that the Government need only depend on the voice of the people of the Republic of South Africa; it does not require other forces to strengthen it constitutionally. The Government is introducing this legislation with the specific object of protecting the right of expressing your opinion freely. We should not allow ourselves to be influenced by people who, because they are lawyers, say all sorts of absurd things. We have had such a series of absurd statements recently from people learned in law that I am ashamed of being an advocate myself. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to the cruelties which would be visited upon people under this Bill as a result of the house arrest which is provided for in Clause 8. I think that we are acting very decently and in a very civilized way towards these people who should be brought to book. As the hon. the Minister has said, they are given the opportunity of remaining with their families and of carrying on making a living.

Another point which was made was that in future, in terms of this Bill, the onus would rest on the accused. That is supposed to be such a terrible thing. I want to say in the first place, and I want to admit it frankly, that I am also in favour of it that under normal circumstances we should not depart from the legal principle that the onus rests on the shoulders of the State to prove that an accused person is guilty. But exceptional cases demand exceptional measures, and when we frame laws for unscrupulous people like the communists, we dare not take any chances; that is our duty towards our country and our nation. I want to say firstly that it is not a new principle in our law to place the onus on the accused in exceptional cases. In this connection I wish to refer, inter alia, to the Stock Theft Act in which the onus is placed on the accused in various sections. I refer briefly, inter alia, to Section 3 of Act 57 of 1959—

In other words, the accused has to prove it.

Has that Act already been promulgated?

Yes, certain parts of it, but I am coming to that. Then you have Section 4 (2) which provides—

But seeing that the hon. member for Sea Point (Mr. J. A. L. Basson) has asked that question, I want to deal with the following point immediately. It is not only the National Party Government which has made laws such as this. The old Stock Theft Act, Act No. 25 of 1923, contains similar sections—

It is an old principle that in such cases the onus should rest on the accused. In the Official Secrets Act to which the hon. the Minister referred yesterday, the onus is also placed on the accused in certain instances. I want to refer to that. It is not only done in the Official Secrets Act, it is not only the South African Government who does this sort of thing; but also England, for example—and I do not think there is a country in the world which is more democratic—passes legislation in which the onus is shifted in some cases. I refer to the Official Secrets Act of 1911 (I and II George V, Chapter 28). Section 1 (2) reads as follows—

Similarly in various clauses of this Bill the onus is shifted on to the accused. Now we are told: Yes, the onus may be shifted on to the accused as long as the crime of which he is accused is not a crime in respect of which his life may be endangered; in that case, they argue, the onus should not be shifted on to the accused. The United Party themselves, during their time shifted the onus on to the accused in cases where the death sentence was imposed. I am referring to the emergency regulations. Hon. members must not come and tell us that those emergency regulations were promulgated and used during a time of war because in terms of those emergency regulations, in terms of Proclamation 29 of 1942, after peace had been declared, hon. members opposite, when they were in power, appointed special courts. In February or in March 1946 a special court was appointed in Johannesburg under Judge Ramsbottom with two assessors. That court sat for 14 days; various cases were tried by that court, only one of a political nature, and dealt with within the first two days because three of the accused pleaded guilty and were punished and because the other accused were acquitted. The balance of the 14 days was devoted to the other cases, which were ordinary cases of robbery, etc. Some of those offences were committed after peace had been declared. Therefore, even during their time the Opposition passed legislation and acted under it in which the onus was shifted on to the shoulders of the accused with the prospect of being sentenced to death. In this connection I wish to refer to Proclamation 29 of 1942. Emergency Regulation No. 6, for example reads—

And then they list certain special offences—

In other words, in this case the onus was also shifted on to the shoulders of the accused, while the court, if it found the accused guilty of the crime, had to condemn him to death.

That was the minimum penalty.

That was the minimum penalty; that was the only penalty provided for.

What were those crimes?

Time does not allow me to read them all out because I only have 40 minutes, but it included, inter alia “murder or an attempt to commit murder or assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm or malicious injury to property”, and so it goes on. In these emergency regulations the onus was, therefore, also placed on the accused, while the accused could be sentenced to death. In emergency regulation No. 13 the onus is placed on the accused, i.e.—(Translation)

That was at a time of war.

Hon. members are again raising the parrot cry of there was a war on. I have just told them that under those emergency regulations they prosecuted people, after peace had been declared, for crimes committed after the cessation of hostilities. The O.B. general must not come and tell me, therefore, that that was at a time of war. I say, therefore, that this is clear proof that the same procedure was followed by members of the Opposition when they were in power. But I go further; I say that the hon. the Minister is not just simply shifting the onus of proof on to the accused in this Bill. The hon. the Minister has indicated very clearly that the court, therefore the State, has to prove certain definite elements; it has to prove intent, for example, it has to prove that the offence was committed wrongfully, and then the accused has the opportunity of putting up the other defences mentioned in the Bill. In other words, far from it that the onus is shifted on to him, it provides him with a safety valve; it affords him an additional protection. But the accused has this additional benefit that he can only be prosecuted under this measure if the Attorney-General issues a certificate to that effect. We are told that the powers which are given to the Attorney-General are too great. But, Mr. Speaker, the position is in any case that a person can only be prosecuted if the Attorney-General decides to prosecute; that has always been the function of the Attorney-General, also in cases of murder. In this case the Attorney-General has to issue a certificate, otherwise an accused cannot be prosecuted under this measure. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition complains and says that in this specific instance the powers given to the Attorney-General are too great and that the weals and woes of the public and of poor innocent people will in future depend on the whims of the Attorney-General. I cannot understand how the Leader of the Opposition can say a thing like that, because if the Attorney-General has to decide, in the first instance, to prosecute, the Judge is always there to decide whether the person is guilty or not, and if the Attorney-General exercises the power which this Bill gives him and wrongfully decides to prosecute a person of a less important crime under the Sabotage Act you can imagine, Sir, what the Judge will have to say about that. There is, therefore, no question about that sort of thing happening. But in England also, under the Official Secrets Act, in such cases the same powers are given to the Attorney-General which are given in this Bill. That is therefore also the position in England.

Then, finally, there is still the impartial Judge in this case on whom the accused can depend, other than in the case of the emergency regulations which were also used in peacetime and in terms of which the Minister had the right to select a special Judge whom he wanted to try the case; I say that other than in that case, this Government is coming forward with a Bill under which in such a serious charge the accused can be tried by any Judge in the country.

Finally we have the complaint that certain minimum penalties are provided for in this Bill. According to members of the Opposition, this Government is supposed not to have any confidence in the courts because, as a result of the fact that minimum penalties are provided for, no discretion is left to the courts. Mr. Speaker, discretionary powers have often been curtailed by many governments, inter alia, also by hon. members opposite when they were in power. Emergency Regulation No. 5 provides—

And then the exceptions are listed. In other words, they too laid down that in certain circumstances no discretion should be allowed to the Judge. However, I first want to ask this question: Why does the fact that a minimum penalty is laid down detract more from the rights and discretionary powers of a Judge than the fact that a maximum penalty is laid down? Our entire legal system and that of the whole world is alive with examples where maximum penalties have been provided for from time to time. Why does the provision of a minimum penalty detract more from the discretion of a Judge? Nor are minimum penalties something unknown in our legal system. As I pointed out a moment ago, under those emergency regulations the United Party Government during their time also provided for minimum penalties, even the death sentence. It is not therefore a new principle. Minimum penalties are provided for in every democratic country of the world. I referred a moment ago to the Official Secrets Act. Minimum penalties are laid down in Clause 1 of this Bill. Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act reads—

In other words, also in England under the Official Secrets Act minimum and maximum penalties are laid down. The fact that this Bill provides for minimum penalties does not in the least mean, therefore, that a new principle has been introduced into it; that is something known throughout the world, and I want to make an appeal to the Opposition not to allow themselves to be influenced by what Albert Luthuli and the Liberals are shouting and to come and say things in this House which do not only harm them in the eyes of the world but our country as well.

The hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. J. J. Fouché) has covered a fairly wide field. I just want to touch on one or two of the points made by him before coming back to deal in more detail with the Bill. The hon. member, in supporting the appeal of the Minister of Justice for the granting of the wide powers contained in the Bill before us, said that it was essential for the Government to have these wider powers in order to enable them to control the subversive elements in the country and also in order to impress the outside world how firmly we were able to deal with the troubles in our own country. Sir, that has been the argument used by every despot throughout the ages. It is the weapon that is used in order to stampede a public, often a public who do not think for themselves and who accept things at their face value, into giving the Government of the day or individual of the day, the support that he requires to get his own way, and just as surely as he has got them, so each of these individuals in turn has perished and collapsed. We had the example quite recently, in our own lifetime, of what happened in Germany and Italy. We know the price that the world had to pay for just this sort of doctrine—more and more power in order to control. We are still paying the penalty of what was the final result of the granting or the taking of those powers. Our argument against this Bill is that this Government have, over the last 12 years, at their request, been given Act after Act, power after power, often against our better judgment, but we have given them those powers in order to back up a Government who claimed that they require these powers in order to be able to bring security to this country. We have had seven various Bills, and heaven only knows how many amending Bills, and each successive Bill has asked for more and more powers. But neither of these measures has ever been properly used to bring about the security of the State. They have been used very often to bring about the political security of the party in office. That is where the Government have failed and that is where the Government will fail again, despite these powers, once they force this Bill through Parliament with a majority.

Give one instance to support that accusation.

I could give, not one, but many.

Give us one of the many.

The hon. member for Smithfield, with whom I want to deal first, set out the pattern of Communism. He gave us what he described as the four phases of the communist attack, which is undoubtedly a very insidious attack on the security of the country concerned. But the hon. member is 12 years too late. When the Suppression of Communism Bill was introduced, the then Minister gave us the pattern of the communist attack, a pattern which was almost identical with the pattern which the hon. member for Smithfield has given us here. That was the pattern of communist aggression on which they asked Parliament to authorize the passing of the Suppression of Communism Bill 12 years ago.

That is still their pattern.

Hon. members opposite still claim that that is the pattern, and they are still unable to use the powers that we have given them. That is the danger that faces this country, that we have a Government in office who has proved over the 12 years that they have been in office that they are completely incapable of governing this country as it should be governed and of guaranteeing the security of the country in spite of the very wide powers that they have been given towards that end.

The hon. the Minister of Justice has asked me to give him some examples of the Government’s failure to use these powers. I will just give him one example. That is the abject failure that the Government made of the treason trial. They held this country up to ridicule in every country of the world because of the farce that they made of that trial, where they allowed politics to intrude into matters affecting the welfare of the country, and where eventually the courts of the land themselves had to give their verdict against the Government. There are other instances that one could quote to show their misuse of the powers given them and their inability to use those powers properly. I do not propose to take up the time of the House by quoting further examples. This Government, in general, have been given every one of the powers for which they have asked; where they were not given these powers, they took them by means of their majority in Parliament. But if they are given the powers asked for in this Bill to-day, this Government, in a year or two, will be in exactly the same position in which they are to-day.

Why?

The answer is quite simple. It is that this Government, as a Government, is incapable of administering the laws of the country in the best interests of this country. They are so blinded by politics that they lose sight of the national welfare of this country. That is the reason, in reply to the hon. member’s interjection, and that reason will persist because the blinkers of politics will never be taken off the eyes of this Government, no matter what powers we give them, and the country and the people of the country will suffer as the result of it.

This Bill that we have before us now imposes such far-reaching restrictions on the daily lives of all South Africans, the law-abiding together with the law-breakers, that it might well be said that the Bill, when passed, will set, in its overall effect, a new pattern in the daily life of the Republic. A new pattern differing very much from the pattern of the forebears of the present Government and our own forebears. The men who, in order to keep their freedom, in order to be able to have freedom of expression, in order to be able to live the type of life that they want to live, went right through all the difficulties and dangers of the Voortrekkers’ Great Trek. They did that following the basic guiding star of freedom—freedom of thought, freedom of action—a complete negation of what this particular Bill now brings into force.

But you were against the principles of Communism.

This Bill is attempting to stifle the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the nation. Sir, I wonder what their forebears would think of them if they came back to-day and saw the sorry state to which they have reduced this country. Yesterday in introducing the Bill the hon. the Minister went to great lengths to try and convince the country that although the Bill provides for sweeping new powers, which could be applied by ministerial edict, they were largely precautionary and that they would not be used except to deal with communists or people who were jeopardizing the security of the country, people whose actions could justifiably be regarded as a danger to the State. The hon. the Minister went to great lengths to try and assure the House and the country that the ordinary law-abiding public need have nothing to fear from the provisions of this Bill, from the very extreme powers conferred on him in terms of this Bill. The trouble about that is that we have grown to realize that words to-day have quite a different meaning to what we thought they meant eight or ten years ago. The same words to-day to two different people mean something quite different, and to hon. members on this side it certainly means some thing quite different from what it means to hon. members on that side.

What are you trying to accuse me of?

Words can no longer be accepted as meaning what the dictionary says they mean. That is one of the reasons why we have to examine the powers for which the Minister asks in this Bill.

Why do you not say clearly what you want to say?

Why does the hon. member not read the title which that party gave the Bill which took away the rights of the universities, as far as the admission of non-Whites is concerned? They called it the Extension of University Education Bill!

A good title.

I can give the House half a dozen other similar examples where words as used by that side of the House mean something quite different from what we understand them to mean, and from what the world understands them to mean.

I suppose this Bill is the Extension of Civil Liberties Bill.

Yes, I quite agree with the hon. member that they might well call this the Extension of Civil Liberties Bill. Sir, these far-reaching powers in many ways constitute a take-over bid on the part of the Government, a bid to take over the process of law and order as we understand it in this country. These new powers will be enshrined in an Act of Parliament. Once they are enshrined in an Act of Parliament—and with the regimented majority of the Government, they certainly will be no matter what opposition the country puts up. Hon. members of the Government, no matter what their private thoughts might be, will support this Bill; they are bound to do so and therefore the Bill will become law. The existing safeguards provided by the courts, the right to appeal to the courts of law and all the other safeguards which have been built up over so many years by the people who have helped to build up South Africa and our Western civilization, will disappear, and one man, the hon. the Minister or his delegate, through the Cabinet, will take the place of those authorities. His decision will be final and binding. There will be no appeal against that decision, and that is the danger that we are fighting against. The danger of dictatorial control superseding what we understand as the law of the Republic. Sir, take Clause 5 of the Bill dealing with the Press. The hon. the Minister quoted cases of acts of sabotage by the Communist Party and he went on to say last night when he was introducing the Bill that with regard to some of these cases the communists wanted to see whether they could depend on the support of the English Press, and that judging by what was happening to-day they could depend on such sympathy and aid. Sir, what a shocking statement for a Minister of Justice to make; what a shocking statement to send out to the world that the responsible English-language Press of this country are using their power in the land to support Communism. It is a statement which cannot be too strongly condemned.

Why?

Because it is not true.

It may not appeal to the hon. member who interjected in the same way as it does to me. I would condemn it as completely unjustified and untrue. A statement, as I say, which cannot be too strongly condemned as unwarranted, and to which the hon. the Minister failed to advance one particle of substantiative proof. He certainly quoted from newspapers in Ghana and newspapers published in New York, but that clause in the Bill is aimed at the English-language Press in South Africa and not at the Press in foreign countries over which we have no control. It must be applied to our own Press. One can only conclude, on the evidence we have before us, that under sub-section (4) of Clause 5, the R20,000 deposit clause as it appears here, the provisions for its forfeiture at the discretion of the Minister of the Interior must be classified as a calculated attempt at intimidation, intimidation aimed at silencing any criticism of the Government by a Press which does not support Nationalist policy. What other reasons are given for it? The small Press of the country will come to an end under this particular penalty. There certainly will be very few new papers established. And even as far as the larger newspapers are concerned, just as the Press Commission has been hanging over their heads, so this will hang over their heads so as to keep them to heel.

Are you afraid?

No, I am not afraid and the Press should have no need to be afraid. If the hon. the Minister would apply this particular penalty to some of the inspired broadcasts by the Government-sponsored, Government-controlled radio system in this country, then he might really be carrying into effect the properties of the Bill in an unbiassed manner. I could give the hon. Minister an example to-day in his own language Press, in the Press controlled by one of his own Cabinet Ministers, where a statement has been published with regard to a dissension on this side of the House between the back-benchers and the rest of his party which is completely devoid of one atom of truth. It has been sucked out of somebody’s thumb and is a blatant lie. and yet it is published in to-day’s Press. What will the hon. the Minister do to contradict a statement like that? It is taken out of the ditch, a statement like that, in order to stir up dissent. One of the most shocking pieces of the betrayal of newspaper integrity that I have seen for many, many a long day.

I want to ask the hon. the Minister under this clause, to cast his mind back a little bit, and I want to ask him a question and I hope he will kindly deal with it when he replies. Under this clause and under this penalty, what action would the hon. the Minister propose to take against the editor, or against the directors of a National newspaper who in time of war published in his paper articles which were of assistance, of sympathy or gave support to agents of the enemy in our own country? I want to ask him what he would do with an editor like that if statements were published which could be construed as being of direct assistance to the enemy with whom the country was engaged, at war? Would he use that clause then to deal with a newspaper editor like that, provided he was not an editor of the English-speaking Press?

You are going to get a reply.

I hope I will. I would like to know what you would do in such a case. Would the hon. the Minister perhaps make this clause retrospective and take action on it? Sir, yesterday and to-day, my hon. Leader very clearly and unequivocally stated the United Party attitude in regard to this Bill. He left no doubt in anybody’s mind as to what our attitude was, Sir. He made it clear beyond all doubt that we and the thousands of South Africans who think like us and support us …

The Black Sash.

Not the Black Sash, United Party supporters and men and women who are backing South Africa and not a political party. He made it quite clear that not only are we opposed to Communism and all that Communism stands for, all the evils that it stands for. we are not only opposed to that, or any sabotage of state security in any shape or form, but also that we have time and time again given clear proof of that by positive action against it. We don’t depend on promises, we can quote records of action that has been taken, and anyone, no matter who it is, who states otherwise, is being deliberately untruthful. I don’t care who makes that statement. Our Leader has again made our position clear, although long before that it has been clear, and any statement to the contrary is a deliberate untruth. It is merely another attempt to belittle the extent to which we represent the views of the people of South Africa to-day. And many attempts are made to belittle the extent to which we do represent the views of South Africa on an occasion like this, when as the official Opposition in this Parliament, we are the only, almost the only free mouthpiece that can voice that opposition, can voice those feelings of the people of South Africa.

Can you tell us why your support is continually diminishing?

Hon. members should remember when they raise these doubts that every individual member of the official Opposition when he rises to speak in this House, speaks on behalf of at least twice the number of voters in South Africa as any member on the other side of the House. Individually, man for man, we have a responsibility twice as great to represent the people as those the other side represent. That should be taken into account in assessing the value of the objections we raise. I know it does not really mean anything to these members on the Government side. Their job is mapped out for them in their party caucus and they dare not depart from it when they come in the House. They are not free. Their freedom is a thing of the past. What we are fighting for is to keep a measure of freedom for the country. If they like to surrender theirs we are not prepared to surrender ours.

Why is your party shrinking to nothing?

I will tell the hon. member why we are dwindling in numbers: Due to the manner in which the Government side manipulates the delimitation of this country.

Order!

I withdraw the word “manipulates”. I will say then: By the system under which the country is delimited, in which the Government of the day has a very major part to play. That is the reason why members on this side speak on the average for at least double the number of South African voters than members on the Government side.

Your attitude towords Communism is one of the reasons for your decline.

I have long given up expecting the Chief Whip on the other side to know anything about these matters. I only want to say that my hon. Leader, in the line he took, spoke with the backing, not only of his parliamentary team, but with the backing of the tens of thousands of the people of South Africa who do not see eye to eye with Nationalist policy in this country, and we in the House support absolutely the views which he expressed. Sir, since 1950 Act after Act has been passed, every one of them having a common pattern, every one of them short-circuiting wherever possible the system of law as we know it, coupled with the plea for the desperate need for urgency for the House to give the Government that particular piece of legislation. I am not going to weary the House by quoting from Hansard. My Leader last night, quoting in respect of the Suppression of Communism Act, showed that when the hon. the Minister introduced the Bill he made quite clear the desperate need that there was for it stating: “With the deadly menace of Communism in South Africa, and if possible to eradicate it, it is not only highly desirable, but it is also definitely urgently necessary.” That theme runs right throughout all the Bills which have been introduced, just as it runs through the Bill before us now. For 12 years it has been desperately urgent to have these measures to deal with subversive activities in this country. Yet, after 12 years of practically unlimited power, the Government now comes back again for more power, because they say they find that they have not got power enough to deal with the situation in South Africa. Yet, side by side with that, Sir, the hon. the Minister tells us that the country is calm, restful, peaceful. The hon. member for Smithfield this afternoon, in flat contradiction, referred to the strained world conditions. Which one must we accept, Sir, because both can’t be right?

Sir, earlier in the week the hon. the Minister at a Press conference, and again last night in the House, gave us certain assurances and safeguards with regard to carrying into effect certain provisions of the Bill, safeguards, as I said a moment or two ago, meant little, that these provisions would only be applied to individuals or bodies who have flouted the law and were a danger to South Africa, and that the law-abiding citizens need have no fear at all. But even before these assurances reached the public, even before or at the same time when they were made—particularly the earlier assurances at a Press conference, and long before this Bill had come before the House, the hon. the Minister had forestalled what was going to happen, and announced that the first banning he would carry out, as soon as the Bill was passed, would be to ban the Cape Town Parade meetings, the Cape Town traditional Hyde Park meetings, the safety valve for the man who feels he has a message. He may be a little extreme, but, nevertheless, it is a safety valve for Cape Town. The Minister stated that he would ban those meetings, and that he would also ban the meetings on the steps of the City Hall in Johannesburg, which, to a large extent, fulfils a similar sort of function to our Parade. Sir, it is recognized in the Western world at large that such a traditional spot is of value. You can go to almost any Western country and you will find somewhere or other a traditional spot or traditional corner, where the crank and the extremist get up, they blow off steam, they may cause a little trouble at times, but I have never known them to cause trouble that the police were unable to deal with, but they are a safety valve which helps to postpone or to stop a bigger explosion. More than that, they are the medium whereby track can be kept of the more dangerous agitator. They are the focal point at which those whose duty it is to preserve law and order in the land can make their contacts and keep track of the people they wish to keep under check. What happens now, Sir? The Minister closes down those meetings. So that contact is broken for one thing. What has he also done? He has screwed down the safety valve. But he won’t stop these people from talking. Instead of talking in the open, where members of the Security Force can be standing by and see just what he says, and to deal suitably with anybody who goes beyond reasonable boundaries, they will go underground, where they are able to do a lot more damage than what they can do as long as you keep them on the surface. Will this hon. Minister never learn those lessons? As long as you keep people talking, so your danger is lessened. I thought that statesmen all over the world learn that as their first lesson. You find to-day the heads of all the big Western Powers in the world are keeping a world war at bay by talking. Sometimes people get restless because they go on “talk, talk, talk”, but as long as they “talk, talk, talk”, they don’t shoot. This Minister is going to stop them talking. What a foolish thing to do. How foolish can a Government get? What trivial things to deal with when the bigger things are waiting to be handled.

I ask: What value can we attach to assurances the Minister gives the House as to his handling of the powers under this Bill when, even before the powers become law, he is telling the country what he intends to do by using them in the banning of these gatherings? Does that give any added value to the hon. Minister’s assurances? I would say that this precipitated an ill-advised action of the Minister is an indication of what might be expected with regard to other aspects of the Bill.

Sir, the Bill, naturally with a measure of this sort, has very wide legal implications. I don’t propose to deal with those. They will be dealt with by people with legal training.

But, in the few minutes left to me, I want to put the viewpoint of the ordinary man, the average South African as he views this Bill, the average South African man and woman and their approach to this Bill.

How do you know?

I don’t go about with my eyes shut or my ears closed. I keep contact with the people. I am not wound up in a cocoon of political blindness or political deafness. I am prepared to listen to both sides and hear both sides of the argument and to be convinced if the argument is sound. That is how I know. I want to put the viewpoint of the ordinary average South African man and woman as they view this Bill and its direct effect, through the several Acts which it is amending, its direct effect on their lives and the life of the country. Sir, from that viewpoint, the Bill first of all very widely extends and expands the scope, the powers and the penalties of the Acts that are being amended. It introduces a large number of new offences and, criminal acts, additional to those specified in the original Act, the principle of which was adopted by this House. It imposes important new and much heavier penalties and disabilities. One of the most important things that we must object to is that it makes important compulsory changes in the procedure and discretion of the courts. The hon. the Minister has gone to some length to explain that certain of these procedures and also other features have been enshrined in previous Acts. One or two hon. members, I think the Minister himself, mentioned in the course of his speech, that the question of a minimum sentence was enshrined in the Stock Theft Act. He also raised the issue that some of these penalties had already been enshrined in the War Measures passed by the United Party Government. I want to say there, that at that time, this country was at war, fighting for its life. Measures such as the then Government was forced to pass were necessary measures brought about in order to control the activities of certain people in this country who were then doing their best to sabotage the war effort, who were then doing their best to betray the men and women on the battlefield and jeopardize their lives. Vastly different conditions to what the hon. the Minister told us exist to-day, everything being peaceful and quiet. They were not peaceful then, they were not quiet then, they were not at rest then, at least not those people who were backing South Africa in its fight for existence, and at the same time had to fight people in our own country who were doing their best to jeopardize the war effort. When you compare the penalties taken under those conditions and the penalties asked for under the conditions which the hon. the Minister told us about, then we have to take widely different views on the need and necessity for them. Here, as I say, the Bill makes important compulsory changes in the procedure of the courts. In certain types of trial it abolishes preparatory examination, an accepted portion of the law of the land, an accepted process which the average person who transgresses the law has grown to regard as something that is there for his protection. It at least ensures that he will get a completely fair hearing. It abolished trial by jury in certain cases and leaves the trial to a Judge, but it does more than that. It does not leave the trial unconditionally to the Judge, or rather, it may leave the trial to the Judge and he may give a verdict, but then he no longer has the discretion as to what, as a result of the evidence he has heard he may decide is a fit and proper punishment. He then finds that under the terms of this Bill his discretion has been abolished, and certain sentences, compulsory minimum sentences have to be imposed, including in some cases compulsory death sentences.

Where do you find the compulsory death sentence?

It abolishes the discretion of the courts to take into account the position of a youth under the age of 21. It abolishes the discretion of the court under certain conditions to take into account the fact that an offender’s age is under 18.

Where is the compulsory death penalty under the Bill?

I beg your pardon, it is a compulsory minimum of five years’ imprisonment. It also provides for a death penalty. I want to ask the hon. the Minister, when it comes to dealing with the age limit, in dealing with juveniles under 21 years of age, to tell us why he has gone so far. The hon. the Minister is reported as having said in a Press interview the other day that where young people allow themselves to fall under the influence of agitators and communists, where they commit crimes as a result of falling under the influence of these people, they must be prepared to face the consequences. I think that is a fair summary of what the Minister’s views are. I want to ask the hon. the Minister again to cast his mind back to a time when young people were influenced by certain movements in this country, movements with whom the hon. the Minister was not unacquainted. Whether those young people influenced by that persuasion at that time, would have been treated in the same way by him? Does he not think that the young person at least when he is influenced by somebody more mature or who should be more mature in his judgment, should receive some consideration in view of his youth? Youth is always taken into account. Surely the Minister must have been misreported, as so many Ministers are, when he is credited with having said that if young people allow themselves to be influenced by agitators and people who were sabotaging the country, they must take the consequences. That again, Sir, seems to me to be a shocking statement to come from a Minister entrusted with the handling of justice in the Republic. It is quite a new approach from the point of view of justice. It is somewhat on a par with the approach found in another Bill, where, in order to ensure voting numbers, the age limit was reduced from 21 to 18 years for voters. May be the hon. the Minister has linked it up with that, and that he has got confused between the two. But I would ask him to reconsider this aspect of youth, because to me it is something that nothing on this earth can support that particular viewpoint on youth being taken in this Bill. Sir, this Bill would be a most drastic measure in any democratic country, even under conditions of martial law in times of war. But in peace time, even under to-day’s strained world conditions, and certainly under the peaceful and quiet conditions mentioned by the Minister, it can only be classified as one of the most aggressive curtailments of civil liberties ever introduced outside the Totalitarian or Fascist states.

Sir, the United Party has always consistently and firmly stood by the rule of law, administered by the courts of the land, and not for arbitrary control by Ministers. And after all, whether it is a Cabinet decision, or a decision finally translated into law through the State President or through the Minister concerned, it still remains an individual decision arising from the will of the Minister. According to a report published in the Cape Times on 15 May, the hon. Minister of Justice said in reply to a question put to him, that the object of the Bill is to close up loopholes which have been found to exist. I am prepared to accept that without any question as one of the objects of this Bill. The Government and its individual members have right down the years given every clear proof that it was possible, to give of their intolerance and objection, to anyone or any legally constituted body that criticizes or refuses to bow to their dictates, and through that attitude that they have time and time again, immediately they get a decision of a court of law, which is adverse to the Government’s viewpoint, in the next Session of Parliament, as sure as day follows night, they come along with an amending Bill to stop up that loophole. The latest example we only had a few weeks ago in the Bill brought about the case of Mr. Song, and that has been the pattern during the last ten years right through. Every time a court has given a verdict against the Government, there has been amending legislation to stop the discretion of the courts. [Time limit.]

I do not intend to reply to the hon. member for Simonstown for two good reasons. Without wanting to be flippant, I would like first to give the one reason. I want to give it by way of a story from the American Negro folk lore. A Negro appeared before the Judge and he wanted a divorce. The Judge asked him: “Why do you want to be divorced?”, and he replied, “Well, my wife talks and talks and talks”. Then the Judge asked: ‘What does she talk about?”, and then he said, “She does not say”. I think the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) will understand that. I should like to address my remarks to the Leader of the Opposition.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition accused the Government and hon. members on this side of moving outside the historical pattern of our country and of our past. He intimated that we were betraying our past, that we were abandoning our past history; he emphasized the so-called infringement of rights which is supposed to be taking place, particularly of the “rule of law”, certain contraventions of the law of evidence, and in connection with certain police work we are supposed to be doing.

Before replying to that, I should like to take a preliminary point, namely this: He said this Bill was unnecessary. He says there is peace and quiet in the country and therefore the Minister of Justice should not introduce such a Bill. Now I want to ask him this question: To what extent must the peace and the safety of the public be endangered before he considers such a Bill necessary? That is what I would like to know from him. Is there not an adage which says prevention is better than cure? And then I still want to put this question to him: To what extent must law and order be disrupted before he thinks this measure is necessary? I think this is quite a fair question. I think it is quite a reasonable question, because he himself invited this question by saying: There is no necessity for it; there is peace in the country. Therefore, the hon. the Minister should not introduce this Bill. And, Mr. Speaker, he says he just wants to take action where it is essential to take action. Then he mentions the position we had in 1953, when there was the passive resistance movement, and when his party supported this side of the House, also in regard to the General Law Amendment Act and the Public Safety Act, and again last year in connection with the incidents at Langa, when they were also prepared to do so. Therefore I think I am entitled to ask to what extent our water supplies must first be damaged before he will take action. I ask that of any of the hon. members opposite, because I think they are going to follow him like a chorus in saying that this Bill is not necessary. Mr. Speaker, I ask how much of the provision of fuel and light and the distribution of food, how many sanitary conveniences, medical services and fire brigades, and how many other services must first be disrupted before the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his whole party will assist us in combating such evils? He is now writing peacefully; he pretends not to hear me, but I think that this is a justifiable question.

You are now contradicting your own Minister.

No, I am putting this question to the Leader of the Opposition. He said there was no necessity for this Bill because there is peace and quiet in the country, and why does the Minister take these powers when there is peace and quiet? Now I ask how much of that peace and quiet is to be disrupted before he will support this measure?

What did your Minister say?

No, the Leader of the Opposition cannot get away with that. He says this legislation is unnecessary. The hon. the Minister does not say that this Bill is unnecessary; he is introducing it. He introduces it and the Leader of the Opposition opposes it. It seems to me that he does not know today what he did last night. Does he want to tell me that he now supports this Bill?

Mr. Speaker, I again want to ask him: How much of the freedom of movement on land, by sea and in the air is to be obstructed before he will intervene? I think that is a justifiable question and that I am entitled to a reply. If he cannot speak again and reply to me, I hope he will tell one of his minions to reply. He can just pass the word along. I think they are servile enough. Sir, that is the preliminary point I wish to put before dealing with the merits of the legal allegations made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

I have said that the hon. the Leader chides us for not moving in our historical pattern, and particularly that we are interfering in all Kinds of ways with our law or procedure. The hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. J. J. Fouché, Jnr.) has already pointed out that in so far as the onus of proof is concerned, we have numerous statutes which place the onus of proof on the accused person. But hon. members opposite interrupted him and said that those were war measures. They took no notice of the fact that he said that even after the war these measures were passed in connection with things that were done during peace-time. But I will now give them a number of provisions in our law where the onus of proof is placed on the accused, and it is placed on him for one reason only, namely that there are certain facts which are peculiarly within his knowledge, and which nobody else knows about. The first group I want to mention is as old as the hills. It dates from the year 1917 and thereafter it was repeated in our legislation. I refer to the Insolvency Act No. 24 of 1936, and particularly to Sections 132 (3) and 135 (3), and 135 (1), and to Sec. 132 (2). All this deals with the bankruptcy of the insolvent when he commits acts which reduce his assets, things which only he knows about; or when he prefers one creditor to another, or when he dealt with his assets after having been declared insolvent. Then the onus of proof of his innocence rests on him if he is charged with the offences mentioned in the Insolvency Act. But that is not all. The Wage Act of 1937 creates a whole series of offences where the accused person has to prove his innocence. I want to give a summary of it. That will be convenient to me and also to the House, because otherwise I might bore hon. members with this typical legal language which we all find so difficult to understand. “Proof of Employment” is the first one—and I quote from “The Law of Evidence” by Norman Scoble, at page 51—

Therefore the accused must prove that such person is not in his employment. There are other examples, too. Certain entries in the documents of the employer are accepted as being correct until he proves that it is not the truth. There is, for example, the record of the number of hours worked. I quote further—

Again the onus of proof of his innocence is on the accused. The same applies in respect of the payment of money. If it is alleged that he has not paid, he must prove that in fact he paid. That Act continues to say—

He has to prove that that is not the case. In fact, here he cannot even prove that it was not made in that way. So it continues. This is in terms of the Wage Act, Act No. 44 of 1937, which was taken over from the previous Act.

To come nearer home, there are the Acts of 1956, such as, e.g., the Riotous Assemblies Act. The Riotous Assemblies Act, which those hon. members themselves helped to pass, contain the very interesting provision in Sec. 2 (4) (a), where precisely the same principle operates. This is rather an important section. It is one of those which also infringes the rights of freedom—

is guilty of an offence, unless he convinces the court that he had no knowledge of this prohibition. And that section is not one that was devised by this Government. It is taken from the Act of 1914, the old Riotous Assemblies and Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1914. That was also an Act to amend an existing Act. If I am not mistaken, Gen. Smuts was a member of the Cabinet which passed this Act, and the ipsissima verba of the 1956 Act was taken from that. Then that hon. member still tells us that we do not adhere to the pattern of the past! If he wants to know, I will tell him that it comes from Sec. 1 (2) of the old Riotous Assemblies Act of 1914.

What is the Afrikaans for it?

It is too long; I cannot give it in Afrikaans. It is briefly called the Riotous Assemblies Act. Then there is still more. There is Sec. 17 of Act 17 of 1956, the new Riotous Assemblies Act. That is a section which the Opposition helped to pass. I will read it to hon. members and then they will see it for themselves. You cannot tell me that that was passed in time of war because one part of it was passed in 1914 and the other in 1956. I will read it. It deals with the criminal law amendments—

will ensue. He is presumed to have had a certain intention and a certain object, and he has to prove that he did not have it. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should not come and tell me that we are moving in a pattern at the moment which is different from that of the past.

Mr. Speaker, there are more instances, and I mention them all because those hon. members challenged us to bring proofs when there was not a war on. I refer here to the Criminal Procedure Act, to Section 287 of Act 56, which contains the following provision—

You see, Sir, this is an old Act, because it refers to the Union and not to the Republic—

In other words, the onus of proof of his innocence is again placed on him. We find the same in the next section—

Then I come to Section 12 of the Suppression of Communism Act, where we also have it. Now I do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition supported the Suppression of Communism Act in 1950. I can imagine that in their zeal to promote Communism and always to protect the leftists, they opposed that Act just as strenuously as they oppose this one. But in Section 12 we find precisely the same provision. (The hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell) has an expression of unbelief on his face. I agree with him that it is incredible that we are able to mention all these things. His Leader said that nowhere else did such a provision exist and that it was a violation of our history and our past.) I will read it to the hon. member in English. Section 12 reads as follows—

That is the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950—

Here also the onus of proof is placed on the accused. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has forgotten his own history. In 1953 an Act was passed by Parliament, namely the Criminal Law Amendment Act No. 8 of 1953. It will be remembered that in those days the Opposition first said that they would oppose the Bill, and then suddenly they decided rather not to oppose it but to vote with the Government. They made a virtue of necessity. There is a section in this Act which was passed without a division being called for. It is Section 4—

Then it is presumed that the offence was committed as prescribed in this Act, unless the contrary is proved. The United Party voted for that and, Sir, do you know who took part in that voting? I do not know, because there was no division, but I will tell you which hon. members who are still sitting here to-day took part in the debate. There was Mr. Bloomberg, and he is probably also opposed to this Bill, and Mr. H. C. de Kock, the then member for Pretoria (East), and Mr. Henwood, who I think is still a member of this House to-day. Then there is Mr. Arthur Hopewell, the hon. member for Pinetown, who is a Whip of the party opposite to-day. He also attended that session. Then there was Mr. Mitchell, the hon. member for South Coast. He also voted for that section. Mr. Waterson also voted for it. Those hon. members were all here then, but now they come and tell us that our proposal to-day is in conflict with our past. They themselves were concerned in a similar proposal. I asked the person who keeps the register which people were all present during that debate, and these are the names he gave me. They may all have walked out when Section 4 was under discussion, but the only person who moved amendments there was the Minister of Justice. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will, I suppose, say: Yes, but that was a dangerous time, in 1953; then we were dealing with the passive resistance movement. Then we had other performances in this country. That is why I asked him right in the beginning how many performances he still wants these unlawful and lawless elements to stage before he and his party will vote for a section like Section 4. I think that is a justifiable question. This section comes from Act 8 of 1953.

I say that is in so far as our statutes are concerned, but even when we look at our law of evidence we find this provision that when something is peculiarly within the knowledge of an accused person, he can be expected to furnish proof that he is innocent. All that is necessary is for the State to lead enough evidence for the court to convict him. In that case he must adduce facts which will induce the court to acquit him. We have that also in the case of theft and the possession of stolen property. The adage has it that the receiver is as bad as the thief. But that is not quite true. It is false, as all generalizations are false. All that has to happen is that the State should bring so much evidence that an inference can be drawn that the accused is the receiver of stolen property, and then the onus rests on him to prove that he obtained those goods in an honest way.

But that is still not the rule on which I rely. The rule on which I rely is a different one, which I want to formulate as follows. I quote, again from the “Law of Evidence” by Norman Scoble at page 81—

Then he gives numerous examples, and different ones from those I have given here.

That rule comes from English law. When we come back to this clause and we see what its derivation is—the hon. member for Smithfield has already pointed out that if the State proves that a wrongful act has been committed, say somebody has thrown a bomb or has damaged property, and the State proves sufficient facts for the inference to be drawn that the accused had the frame of mind to commit that act in order to achieve a certain purpose, and the State proves further either that public safety was endangered or that law and order were disrupted or that water was polluted—if the State proves one or all of these facts mentioned from (a) to (b), there are enough facts to draw the inference that in this case the accused committed sabotage. Then the Bill says something which it was almost unnecessary to say, namely that the accused must prove that he did not have that intention. An accused person can always do that if intent is one of the elements of a crime.

The accused must further prove that this series of consequences he set in motion would not normally have led to the consequences mentioned in Clause 2. This is a reasonable thing to prove. But, Mr. Speaker, do you know that if this clause is analysed in accordance with the spirit which prevailed long ago, particularly in the spirit of the English law, then the hon. the Minister of Justice would have stopped at this first stage. He would have said that any person who unlawfully and deliberately commits an act which endangers public safety in any one of those ways, will be guilty of an offence. Then the contrary could not even have been proved. Because in terms of English law, which abandoned that standpoint only during the past 20 years, we had the position that when someone committed an illegal act, from which would flow further illegal acts, then he was also guilty of the further illegal acts. Mr. Speaker, I will make it easy for the hon. member for Durban (North) who looks at me so incredulously. When I go hunting and an old tramp, of whose existence I am quite unaware, lies sleeping behind a bush on my farm, and I shoot him and kill him because I think I am shooting a buck, that is pure coincidence. It is a casus fortuitous. But even though there is no fence, and that bush stands three yards further on my neighbour’s land, where I am not allowed to shoot, and I shoot and kill that old tramp thinking he is a buck, I am guilty of homicide although I was not aware of his existence. Those are the legal tricks to which they resorted. That is what the English law was like in the past, but they changed it by following the example of the Roman-Dutch law. That is what is contained in this clause. The hon. member for Durban (North) may laugh, but those are the facts.

I go further because I would like to review the rest of this clause. But I first want to reply to some of the allegations made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, viz. his objections to the Attorneys-General. I am surprised at the attitude adopted by hon. members in that regard. We will hear this argument before the day is much further advanced, because I have already read it in the Press. The newspapers say that this safeguard offered by the Minister of Justice does not amount to anything because, they say, the Attorney-General only acts at the direction and under the control of the Minister of Justice.

Is that not true?

Yes, and I want to read the section from our Criminal Procedure Act. It is from Act 56 of 1955, Section 5. But I intend telling the hon. member something else he does not know about.

I suppose he will have to pay his school fees.

If he does not know it, and he does not agree with me and with other lawyers to whom I have spoken, he will have to go and ask for his school fees back—

I suppose that is what the hon. member for Durban (North) wants to read to me. That is quite true. This Act was passed in 1955. Now it is part of our interpretation of statutes that when a power is granted to a particular person, that person must perform that particular task. In this case it is general provisions. It is in general, and only in general, that the Attorney-General is subject to the control of the Minister of Justice. But in this case the Bill we are discussing expressly says in Clause 21 (3)—

That is an instruction to him. In this case the Minister has no jurisdiction to influence him one way or the other. But what is more, according to the correct interpretation of the section of the Criminal Procedure Act where it is said that the Minister may reverse a decision, the Minister can only reverse the decision of the Attorney-General if he decides to prosecute, but not if he decides not to prosecute. Because in this particular clause only the acts of commission are placed under the control of the Minister, but not the acts of omission. That is the correct interpretation of this clause. And the law advisers who drafted this Bill knew what they were doing. I say this to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to refute his allegation that this Bill falls outside of our historic pattern.

Then, Mr. Speaker, you will permit me just to refer to the hon. Senator Fagan. It appears to me that if a person has been Chief Justice and then gets lost in politics, that does not exempt him from talking nonsense. The hon. Senator said that we were here violating a freedom of the individual. The individual will be put in the embarrassing position that the Attorney-General has to decide whether to prosecute him or not. I wonder whether the hon. Senator has completely forgotten all his criminal procedure law. In fact, the Attorney-General always decides whether he will prosecute or not. But it appears that the hon. Senator, now that he has got lost in politics and has landed amongst the party opposite, has forgotten all of this.

Then I want to make another correction. I want to contradict the statement that we are not acting within our historical pattern. It is said that the preparatory examination will derogate from the freedom of the individual. Do you know, Sir, what the preparatory examination is? The preparatory examination is not the beginning of the administration of justice, but the end of the police work. It is part of the work of the police. What happens is this. The police come along with all kinds of facts which are strung together in the preparatory examination, and the presiding officer is an official—in our case it is the magistrate—who is also a judicial official. In other countries he is not always a judicial official. But to give him a function, apart from listening to the evidence, we ask him whether he thinks a crime has been committed; in other words, whether the police should continue their investigations or whether they should devote their time to other tasks. If he decides that there are grounds for an investigation, they continue. Now the hon. the Leader of the Opposition says that we will no longer be able to obtain a copy of the record at the preparatory examination. But the copy he obtains is not as the result of a right he has; it is as a favour done him by the State. One pays for that copy. One can always obtain it if one wants to, because the prosecutor is also a “minister of truth”. He also has the duty to get to the truth. He also wants to promote the truth, and for that reason a preparatory examination is held.

Then this other allegation that we are abandoning the whole rule of law is also the greatest nonsense in the world. One has the administrative measures which are performed in accordance with the law of the land. No official, not even the Minister of Justice, who takes a decision, may violate the elementary principles of justice. He has to bear that in mind. I just want to mention a few. He must give the other party the opportunity to be heard. He must say on what facts he bases his decision. He must be unprejudiced. If the Minister of Justice breaks the rules he can be taken to court.

What hon. members want is that the court should perform the administrative functions of the State. They do not believe in the decency of the Minister. If one has no confidence in the executive authority, one cannot do otherwise than to delude oneself and to talk the nonsense hon. members are talking here. I think I have now replied to the various allegations made by the Leader of the Opposition, that this Bil falls outside our historic pattern. But there are still other points on which I wish to reply, in regard to the merits of this Bill.

The simple fact is that when someone comes into conflict with society, there is a corresponding decrease in the goodwill of society towards such a person, and that has been so ever since the year dot. If anybody is convicted of high treason in England they can sentence him to death. That is the punishment, but there are also other consequences. He will suffer from a legal incapacity. He loses all his possessions, inevitably. The question is only whether he loses it to the fiscus or in favour of someone else; he has no estate. Those are the facts. That is also the position in our law. When somebody appointed to a certain post misconducts himself, he is tainted with what is known in our law as “oneervolheid” or infamia. In the English law it is “dishonourableness”. One is tainted with infamia when one commits crimes against society.

If you now look at the definition of “Communism”, it is par excellence a policy for a philosophy which is opposed to existing order. What is more, it wants to disrupt the existing order by extra-parliamentary action, which can be taken either inside the country or outside it. Now the communists do not expect that when they oppose society, they will not also be tainted in the modern manner with infamia or dishonourableness; and when they are so tainted they cannot expect anything else but that there will be a decrease of the goodwill of society towards them; and when the goodwill decreases it is obvious that thereby also their human rights will be affected. If we look at this Bill, it is just a superstructure on what exists already. We have three Acts dealing with Communism. In 1950 we passed the first one, and in 1951, and in 1954 also, and now we have one again, and in the case of each of these measures we can show how there was a decrease of the goodwill of society.

I have proved that we conceived this Bill according to our past pattern. I have also stated that the Leader of the Opposition is absolutely wrong that that is not the case, and I have said that the communists, when they come in conflict with society, must expect a corresponding decrease in the goodwill of society towards them and a limitation of their human rights.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat will forgive me if I do not deal immediately with some of his legal contentions. During the course of my speech I hope to deal with some of the points he made. Sir, I wish to associate myself with the amendment moved by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I do so for a variety of reasons, but primarily because I am satisfied that in this measure the Government is asking for powers and is seeking to introduce new laws infinitely more stringent than the position of this country warrants. By the very terms of this Bill, the Government has created an unfortunate impression of a state of affairs in the country which really does not exist. The mere publication of this Bill, containing as it does the most drastic and far-reaching consequences, will to my mind have an adverse effect not only on overseas opinion but also on overseas investors. It is a great pity that this aspect of the matter does not appear to have been carefully considered by the Government before publishing this drastic Bill. I feel that this Bill will do our country incalculable harm. Whichever way one looks at this measure, one must inevitably come to the conclusion that this Bill contains provisions designed exclusively for a state of emergency. It must create the impression in the mind of everyone reading this Bill, not only in this country but outside the country, that this country is in a state of emergency. The Government must admit that it is a pity that this impression has been created. Sir, we know that South Africa is not in a state of emergency. Conditions in this country are, thank heavens, such that it is not necessary for the Government to invoke even the powers they already have under the existing laws of declaring a statutory state of emergency if circumstances warrant it. If anything, I say that there exists in South Africa to-day a reasonable calmness which permeates right throughout every section of our community, and I say that despite some of the laws this Government has unfortunately passed. The Minister of Justice himself last night told us that the country was quiet and peaceful and at rest. I am very glad that the Minister used those words, because to some extent it was responsible for removing some of this atmosphere which exists. We all know that there are agitators amongst every section of the community and that no law the Minister can introduce will eliminate that completely. They exist in every country. But I say that these agitators have not succeeded in stirring up any section of our people into an attitude or frame of mind which warrants the introduction of this drastic measure which must have such far-reaching consequences.

What about the sabotage that has been committed?

That can be adequately dealt with under the existing law. But I want to point out that this Bill is not aimed against agitators. It is intended to be a permanent part of the law of this country, and that is the tragedy of it. I say therefore that it is a great pity that this false impression of the state of affairs in this country has been created, and for that the Government must accept responsibility. During the course of my remarks I will deal with the powers which the Minister will take unto himself under the Bill, and I want the Minister to accept my assurance that I intend no personal reflection on the present incumbent of that post. The same remarks would apply to any other incumbent.

Before I consider the important provisions of the Bill I think it is necessary to say unequivocally that the security of the State must be of paramount importance. I will at once admit that it is the bounden duty of any Government to see to it that public safety is fully maintained. If I were satisfied that legislation would effectively suppress Communism in South Africa, I would welcome its introduction. I ask myself, however, how far must we go in order to deal with whatever Communism exists here and still maintain the democratic structure of our Republic. How far are we entitled to go in providing for the security of our State while ensuring full democratic rights for all our people. The Minister claims that the provisions of this Bill are aimed primarily at combating the communist menace in our midst. Frankly, I do not know whether it exists to that extent, but for the purposes of the debate I am prepared to accept the Minister’s statement. The question then arises how far we are entitled to go in combating the so-called communist menace without sacrificing the democratic system which South Africa has always maintained, and how far must we separate the security of the State from the freedom of our citizens. Let us examine some of the provisions of the Bill.

The portions of the Bill dealing with sabotage and the penalties inflicted upon saboteurs unfortunately do not differentiate between the different types of person who are likely to fall under the category of saboteurs. Surely there must be some distinction between saboteurs who are enemy agents, saboteurs who are traitorous agents, and saboteurs who fall under the category of irresponsible citizens. This Bill does not differentiate between them. I suggest that not enough though has been given to that aspect.

How can you distinguish between them?

It is perhaps appropriate for me to tell the hon. the Minister that when the first anti-sabotage laws were introduced in the United States in 1918 considerable thought was given to classifying each type of saboteur who might have to be dealt with, and different penalties were prescribed for the different categories of saboteurs. In the various amendments which have taken place since then, moreover, consideration was given in order to see that this differentiation was always maintained. Generally speaking, saboteurs were classified into three groups. The first and most important group were those who were classified as enemy agents. Those included professionally trained personnel of a hostile country. Obviously the most stringent steps had to be taken against them and the highest penalties had to be applied in their case. The next group were the traitorous agents. They were persons who were sympathetic towards some outside country, perhaps a hostile country, or people who bore hatred for their own country. Here again, the legislature, after the most careful consideration, decided that the penalties were to be of a serious nature, possibly of the most stringent character. The third category, and these unfortunately comprise the category of people for whom I am speaking here to-day, were those who classified as irresponsible persons. Those individuals included people who through lack of understanding placed their own personal situation above that of the country and included people who for some personal motives committed irresponsible acts and caused the destruction of property. It must be obvious from what I have said that there can be no generalization in the approach of the legislature in dealing with these different groups. It is obvious that against the trained saboteurs the utmost precautions must be taken and the highest penalties inflicted on them, and I even put the traitorous saboteurs in the same category. As the Minister pointed out last night, they are a specially selected group, thoroughly indoctrinated and well trained to cause destruction. They know where to find the vital spots in this country and know how to bring about the highest degree of destruction. Everyone in this House agrees that those people should be dealt with in the most stringent manner.

What penalty must be imposed?

Including the death penalty. Where it is proved that these people are trained saboteurs, in the nature of either enemy agents or traitorous agents, the highest penalty should be inflicted upon them. But surely the Government cannot contend that an irresponsible person who falls outside the category of being an enemy agent or a traitorous agent should be dealt with in the same manner as those two.

Why not?

For reasons I will give in a moment. Surely elementary justice calls for a distinction in our approach to the offences committed by these different people. Surely it cannot be contended that it is necessary, to deal with the case of an irresponsible person, who for instance tampers with the telephone service or interferes with the movement of traffic in the same way as we would deal with enemy or traitorous agents. Surely you do not intend to deal with those irresponsible people in the same way as you deal with enemy agents. [Interjections.] I have used these examples to show the absurd lengths to which the Minister is prepared to go. In terms of Clause 21, any person who commits any wrongful and wilful act whereby, amongst other things, he tampers with the telephone service, shall be guilty of the offence of sabotage and shall be liable to the penalties provided for by the law for the offence of treason. This shows the absurd lengths to which the Minister is going. If that irresponsible person is lucky enough to escape the death penalty, which is the maximum penalty he can get, he must at least be imprisoned for not less than five years, provided he cannot discharge the onus laid upon him, with which I will deal in a moment. It is true that in Clause 21 (2) he can escape conviction if he proves—and the onus is on the accused—that the commission of the offence was not calculated. If this unfortunate, irresponsible person who tampers with the telephone service fails to prove conclusively that his tampering was not done with the intent of seriously hampering the maintenance of law and order, he will not have discharged the onus placed upon him in this Bill, and he will have to be sentenced to a minimum term of imprisonment of five years. I mention this as an example to show the absurdity of the situation.

Do you think the Attorney-General would be so stupid as to charge him with it?

He may or he may not be. We are arguing now what the Attorney-General is entitled to do in terms of this Bill and I have given this absurd example of how an irresponsible person may find himself in the unfortunate position where in terms of the Bill he has to receive a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. [Interjections.]

But there are many other examples, if you go through the list of offences, which can be quoted—unfortunately I only have limited time—to show how ridiculous the position can become and how ridiculous it is to treat all potential saboteurs under this one head. That is the point I am trying to make. My point is that it is extremely dangerous to treat them all under the same head. It is true, as the Minister said last night, that the responsibility for the prosecution will rest on the Attorneys-General, but we know that there cannot be uniformity of approach by all Attorneys-General in these matters. Some may have a different outlook from others. But the point I am making is that it is written in this Bill that the powers of the Attorneys-General are such that they can authorize the institution of proceedings in the ridiculous circumstances I have described, such as an irresponsible person tampering with the telephone service. The point I want to emphasize also is that the onus shifts in terms of this Bill, as was pointed out by the Leader of the Opposition. There will be an onus on the Attorney-General to prove that the accused person has committed certain acts, and the onus then shifts on to the accused to prove that he did not commit that act or intend to commit it in circumstances amounting to sabotage. The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) unfortunately is not here now, but he dealt with his question of the shifting of the onus. He said that there were many statutes already in existence which contained the principle of a shifting onus. No one has denied that; but all I say is that this Bill does make provision for the shifting of the onus, and I say it is a very heavy onus that the accused has to discharge. He has to discharge it successfully and conclusively, because if he does not prove conclusively that he did not have this intention he fails to discharge the onus and he cannot get the benefit of the doubt. The Minister will appreciate that under the general principles of the criminal law, it is the obligation of the State to prove the guilt of the accused, and to prove it conclusively, failing which the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt. But in this Bill the onus is shifted, once a prima facie case has been proved, to the accused, and he has to prove without any doubt whatever that he did not intend to commit sabotage. I say it is a heavy onus which he may not be able to discharge. It is clear to my mind that if these provisions become law, any irresponsible person, by doing any one of the many things listed in the Bill, and not being able to discharge conclusively the heavy onus placed upon him, will find himself in the invidious position of being convicted. I feel that this is too drastic. We have sufficient laws on our Statute Book to safeguard the security of the State and the safety of our citizens without introducing these provisions. To my mind there is no need for embarking upon this drastic form of legislation which can have the gravest results. Apart from the existing provisions in the Unlawful Organizations Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act, we have the Public Safety Act, the provisions of which can be brought into immediate operation. We all recall how unfortunately in 1960 the Government declared a state of emergency. This had the effect of invoking the drastic provisions of the Public Safety Act. Those provisions gave the Government all the powers necessary. One would imagine that our country is on the verge of a tremendous uprising; and that we are sitting on a volcano. We know that is not the case, and that being so, I see no reason for introducing a Bill which will have these far-reaching results. Surely the Minister would be the first to admit that there is no talk of any subversion at present. That being so, what possible justification can there be for asking Parliament to pass a law which itself is potentially dangerous? It is a law which may lead to great injustice. I say emphatically that under our existing statutes and the criminal code there exists ample provision for dealing with the type of subversive actions envisaged in this Bill. Everyone of these acts enumerated in this Bill can be dealt with by the hon. the Minister under existing laws. It is quite correct that the crime of sabotage is not enumerated in its own name in our criminal code, but the Minister cannot tell us that the law as it stands at the moment is not sufficiently wide to bring the saboteur who commits any one of the acts enumerated in this Bill to justice if he is found guilty of any of these subversive acts enumerated here. I say that the present law is quite adequate to deal with such cases.

Another aspect of the Bill which appals me is the provision which compels our courts to impose a minimum sentence of five years, even if an accused person is found guilty of a minor contravention of the law. That, to my mind, is a wholly unnecessary provision. I think that this is a dangerous and a most objectionable provision. Sir, one thing which we have always prided ourselves upon is the standing of our judiciary. Our judges are men of the highest integrity and of the highest repute, and one of the last things that we should inflict upon them is the fettering of their judicial powers. They have shown throughout the course of our history that by and large they are well able to exercise a competent judicial discretion in the imposition of proper sentences to fit the crime. I think it is a retrogressive step to introduce a Bill which has the effect of tinkering with the discretion of the courts as far as sentences are concerned. I know that the hon. the Minister has pointed out that we have existing laws where the discretion of the courts has already been curtailed, where minimum sentences have already been provided for. Sir, I am not concerned with any previous laws; we are dealing with the Bill which is presently before the House, and I am far from satisfied that the compulsory minimum sentences provided for in our previous laws have proved satisfactory. They have been adversely commented on in numerous cases by our judiciary. I feel that we can repose in our judges, with complete equanimity and with complete confidence, a discretionary power in regard to the imposition of sentences. I say that to fetter the discretion of our courts in regard to sentences can, to my mind, lead to great injustices. It is all very well for the hon. the Minister to say that in a case of extraordinary hardship the judge can make a recommendation to the Executive Council. Sir, that is an unduly long procedure, as the hon. the Minister knows. In the interim the accused and the members of his family suffer the ordeal of not knowing what the outcome of those representations is going to be, and they do not have the benefit of making direct representations, nor have they any opportunity of presenting the case for the defence. Surely the judge who is trying the case is the best person to determine the question of sentence, bearing in mind all the relevant factors. I say that to deprive our judges of their discretionary power in regard to sentences amounts to nothing less than a vote of no-confidence in our judges.

The House will remember a recent case which was heard in Port Elizabeth in which a sentence of six years’ imprisonment was imposed upon a person who had committed an offence which would fall under the category of sabotage under this Bill. The case was heard before the learned Judge President of the Eastern District Court, and this learned and highly experienced judge, with a full knowledge of all the facts and all the circumstances connected with the case, felt that it was in the interest of justice that he should suspend three years of the sentence on certain conditions, and in the exercise of his discretion he accordingly did so. Here was an instance where one of our most experienced and learned judges in this country decided to exercise his discretion and to suspend a portion of the sentence. He did that obviously in the interests of justice. Under this Bill the learned judge would not have been entitled to suspend any portion of the sentence; he would have been precluded from doing so; he would have been compelled to inflict upon the accused a minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment. Instead of that the learned judge decided that the interest of justice would be served if the accused served three years’ imprisonment.

But you voted for the same thing in other Bills.

I am dealing specifically with this Bill, not with previous Bills. Here is a case where one of our most experienced Judges, in the exercise of his discretion, decided that the interests of justice would be served if he suspended three years of this sentence. Under this Bill the Judge would have been compelled to sentence the man to five years. I want to say that in circumstances such as I have described that unfortunate creature whom the Judge tried to rehabilitate by suspending a portion of his sentence, would not have had true justice meted out to him, because obviously if the Judge only intended that a sentence of three years’ imprisonment should be inflicted upon him, there seems to be no reason why he should be compelled to impose a five-year sentence. Sir, this is one of many examples which could be mentioned of how wrong it is to compel our Judges to impose minimum sentences, which in their own mind would be unjust bearing in mind the circumstances of the particular case. Surely each case must be dealt with on its own merits. Surely there must be a distinction in the punishment meted out to adults and misguided boys and girls. Under this Bill there is no discrimination; the minimum sentence must be imposed, and there is no distinction in the degree of sabotage with which accused persons can be charged. Surely it is wrong to try to superimpose upon our courts a system of punishment which may be entirely out of proportion to the magnitude of the particular crime with which the accused is charged. This, to my mind, is one of the worst features of this Bill. I want to say again that everyone will admit that serious sabotage is a dastardly crime in that it may seriously injure or kill innocent people and may disrupt the life of the nation. Under those circumstances anyone found guilty of serious sabotage deserves to have the maximum penalty inflicted upon him. This legislation does not discriminate between serious sabotage and the irresponsible act of stupid people, and since that is so it is quite wrong to divest our courts of the discretionary power that they should have in regard to sentences.

What is more serious—to steal a sheep or to commit sabotage?

I repeat that this is virtually a confession on the part of the Government that our Judges are not to be trusted to exercise judicial discretion in the matter of sentences.

I think I have said sufficient on the sabotage aspect of this Bill to justify us in rejecting those provisions of the Bill at this stage. But there are other objections to the Minister’s proposals. The additional powers which the hon. the Minister seeks in order to ban people and organizations and to regulate their activities are really frightening. Surely the Minister already has sufficient power to forbid anyone to leave a defined area or to attend public gatherings. Under the law as it stands at the moment the hon. the Minister has the widest possible power to. do that. The Minister now seeks to extend those autocratic powers. He virtually seeks to take unto himself, as I read it, the power to prescribe almost the details of the daily routine of a person against whom the banning powers are used. It virtually means, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said here this afternoon, that the Minister will have the power to place a banned person under house arrest. Under the existing law I say that the Minister has the right to prohibit a gathering of people anywhere if he is of the opinion that the gathering is likely to promote the objects of Communism.

But you opposed that?

That is the law to-day, no one opposes that. The Minister, however, does not appear to be satisfied with his present powers, and he now seeks to prohibit gatherings, whether they be public or private gatherings, even social gatherings, anywhere and for as long as he deems necessary. There may, of course, be justification for these extensive powers during a state of emergency, but when one remembers that this is intended to be the permanent law of this country, then one is really shocked. That is the aspect that I want to emphasize. This is intended to remain the permanent law of this country. In ordinary normal times, such as we have at present—and these are normal times—there would appear to be no justification whatsoever for these extensive autocratic powers. In normal times I am convinced that our criminal laws and the powers which the Minister already has under existing Acts, are adequate to deal with every offence envisaged in this Bill. Sir, it has always been a basic principle of our legal system to endeavour to protect our individual citizens against the arbitrary powers of those who are in authority. I say that this Bill violates that basic principle in every respect. It places the highest arbitrary powers in the hands of one Minister to deal in whatever way he likes with the lives of everyone of our citizens. Never before in our history has any one Minister sought such arbitrary and autocratic powers as are contained in this Bill.

That is what the Sunday Times said.

No, I say it, and I think that on reflection the hon. the Minister will agree that he is taking the most autocratic powers. The most frightening aspect of this matter is that this is not intended as emergency legislation; it is intended to become a permanent feature of our South African law. That is the most frightening aspect of this Bill. It is to become a permanent feature of our South African way of life; that is the disturbing factor. I repeat that in the case of an emergency the hon. the Minister would get the support of everyone on this side of the House and of every well-disposed citizen if he thought it necessary to take these powers. Unfortunately I have not had the time to go through all these powers in detail; we will have an opportunity at a later stage of the debate to deal with them in detail, but I say that these powers are intended, as I see the the position, to regulate the thinking of our citizens and to control free expression of opinion more than to deal with sabotage. It is that aspect of the Bill that we object to.

The Minister has based his whole case for bringing about this drastic change in our law on the ground that it is necessary to combat the communistic menace in our midst. I am far from satisfied that this menace exists to the extent claimed by the hon. the Minister, but even if it does exist I am quite satisfied that our existing law is adequate to deal with this menace. I am quite prepared to fight Communism by every lawful means at our disposal, but I am not prepared to see our country turned into a Fascist State under the guise of fighting Communism, which we all know can be fought on other grounds, which have been mentioned here this afternoon by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. I am not prepared to see the democratic structure of our Republic crumble as the result of the provisions of this Bill. If we wish to maintain democracy in South Africa it is essential that justice in the widest possible sense should prevail at all times. We must ensure that these executive powers are not granted to any one member of the Executive, in such wide terms as the provisions of this Bill. I make no reflection upon the present encumbent of the office; my remarks would apply to whoever happened to be occupying the portfolio of Justice. We must ensure that our citizens at all times have the right of recourse to our courts, and that our courts have the right to exercise an independent discretion and we should see to it that they are not unduly fettered by Acts of Parliament. Sir, this Bill will have the effect of enabling citizens of this country to enjoy rights of freedom only at the whim of the Minister of Justice. They will no longer be able to exercise these freedoms as a matter of right but only under sufferance. For those reasons I am wholly opposed to this Bill and I propose to vote against it at the second reading.

This type of irresponsible statement that we have just had from the hon. member …

Oh!

Hon. members opposite are making noises, now; let me give just one example. The hon. member says that the Minister is taking these powers “not to combat sabotage but to control fee expression of opinion”.

“Might”.

No, the hon. member did not say “might”. He said that it was not intended to combat Communism. This type of speech should be made on the Parade, but fortunately this Bill will also put a stop to that now. Mr. Speaker, the fact that this hon. member sits in this House and that he did not become an Attorney-General has saved South Africa from a disaster, because the hon. member comes along with this ridiculous argument—and I am not a lawyer but perhaps we should look at this measure for a moment as it is understood by ordinary people—that a poor innocent person who blows up a post office or a police station may now appear before the court and be sentenced to a minimum of five years’ imprisonment or possibly pay for it with his life. But in the first place it is difficult for me to accept that it will be the poor innocent person who does these things. But, in the second place, let us assume that that does happen, then the matter does not end there, and the hon. member knows that; if it is a poor innocent person then it is for the Attorney-General to decide whether he is going to prosecute. That does not mean to say that a prosecution will be instituted. But the hon. member says that it may be a stupid Attorney-General. I cannot imagine that there are such people, but let us assume that there are.

The hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) may become one.

Order!

I withdraw that.

I wonder whether it was necessary for the hon. member to withdraw that statement, because coming from him it does not really matter. In the first place the Attorney-General has to decide whether he will prosecute; but let us assume that it is a stupid Attorney-General as suggested by the hon. member, then the Minister still has the power to overrule the decision of the Attorney-General and to give instructions that no prosecution be instituted.

And what happens if he too is stupid?

Then there would have to be a United Party Government in power.

The hon. member who has just made that interjection is the man who pinned his hopes on outside forces to place them in power in South Africa, and I am not at all sure that he did not also have in mind assistance from communistic powers. But in the third place, assuming that the Attorney-General does decide to prosecute, then it still remains the function of the judge to decide whether that person is guilty. Does the hon. member want to tell me that the judges in our country are not capable of deciding whether a person is guilty or not? But in the fourth place the person himself still has the right to adduce proof that he did not intend committing sabotage. Then there is still a fifth point, and the hon. member knows this as well as I do: One of the strongest influences to ensure impartial administration of justice in South Africa is public opinion; we see that every day in South Africa, and the Minister and the Cabinet and this House, in the performance of their duties and in the implemention of the various laws, are guided in the first place by public opinion which would never tolerate the unnecessary application of unnecessary measures. But what the hon. member wants to advocate is this: Although there are all these safeguards that a poor innocent person, as he says, will not be convicted, he wants the communist to go scot free and to be allowed to do these things, simply because the hon. member has this fantastic notion in his head. But I want to remind the hon. member of something else. He said, “The Government has created an impression of a state of affairs which does not exist”. It is not this Government which creates that impression. Who creates that impression? That impression is created by the hon. member who sits over there, by his colleagues and by the English-language Press in South Africa. Any person who says that these powers are being taken “not to combat sabotage but to control free expression of opinion” is creating a false impression of the position in South Africa. But I want to remind the hon. member of something else. He spoke here when the anti-communist legislation was before this House and I want to quote what he said, amongst other things, according to the Cape Times of 6 June, 1950—

And since then he has been elected to this House three times in a “free election”. In this connection I want to say a few words in connection with the falseness and the vindictiveness of the propaganda which has been made in this matter in recent times. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and hon. members on that side, in saying what they say outside this House and also in this House, are creating a fine background for the master plan of the communists to destroy democracy in South Africa and throughout the world. Mr. Speaker, the communists have a master plan for Africa. Non of us has any doubt that that threat does exist. But let me say this here this evening: Just as intense as that threat of Communism is to South Africa, so intense is this assault on South Africa—not on this Government—by the United Party and by the English-language Press. We are blamed for the image which is created of South Africa abroad, but for my part I say that there are no limits to what they and their Press proclaims to the world and that the false image that they create is being created deliberately, because they know that that is not the position. Let me say that those of us who think that there has been a change in this respect in Opposition circles and in the English-language Press are making a very big mistake. That attack on South Africa is just as intense as it has been in the past. I say that just as Communism is threatening the world, so the United Party and the English-language Press are threatening South Africa. Sir, give me just five minutes to show you how they do it. I have looked up the newspapers that were issued at the time of the debate on the anticommunist Bill in this House in 1950 and I should like the House to hear what they wrote. I say that in the circumstances it is amazing that some countries in the outside world still think as much of us as they do. Let me quote from the Star of 7 June. 1950—

This refers to the anti-communist legislation—

Then I quote from the Star of the 15th of the same month—

The Star of 13 June—

Mr. Speaker, I should like you to exercise a little patience please; I just want to give you an image of the picture that was painted in 1950. I quote from the Natal Mercury of 8 June, 1950, under the heading “Sabotaging the Law”—

Then again the Natal Mercury of 21 June—

Now I come to the Cape Times. The Cape Times talks about—

Then I quote from the Cape Times of 8 June: “Freedom of South Africa in Jeopardy”. Then on 13 June: “The whole apparatus of the police State is placed at his (Mr. Swart’s) disposal”. Then on 15 June—

Then on 21 June: “A vicious piece of legislation”. The Cape Argus writes—

Then on 20 June—

Now I come to the last one, the East London Daily Despatch. I quote from the issue of 14 June 1950, under the heading “White not Black Victims”—

Then on the 17th—

That is what we had from the Press, and I say that with such a Press no country in the world has a chance of retaining its prestige in the eyes of its Western friends, because as the result of the language medium the fact of the matter is that the outside world gets its news mainly from the English-language newspapers, and the diplomats in South Africa, with few exceptions, have to judge South Africa and present it to their own countries according to what they read in the English-language Press because they do not know Afrikaans. Last Sunday only there was a report in the Sunday Times to the effect that the reports which had appeared in London and also New York, had emanated from the offices of the Sunday Times. Last Sunday only, on their front page, they were still priding themselves on the fact that those reports, those anti-South African reports had come from their office. I want to say here perfectly clearly that every word that I have read out here was a lie. Every word that was written here was subscribed to by United Party speakers at that time, and most of the things that I have read out here have already been said by members on that side of the House in this debate. In this connection we cannot absolve the Opposition from blame. I still do not know precisely what their official attitude is, but I do know what their attitude was in 1950. In 1950 Mr. Strauss moved the following amendment to the motion that the Bill be read a third time—

Amongst other things Mr. Strauss also said this—

And this afternoon the hon. the Leader of the Opposition comes along and repeats these things. What did he say? I do not know whether hon. members sitting on his side fully realize what he said, but if what he said does not amount to incitement, then I do not know what incitement is. I do not know whether I am in order in using the word “incitement apparently I am not allowed to use it. But if that does not encourage people in South Africa to commit sabotage, then I do not know what would encourage them to do so. What does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say? He says—

And then he talks about the Black people as a “frustrated proletariat”. I want to ask the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) whether he agrees with those sentiments.

What is wrong with them?

But the hon. the Leader of the Opposition goes further; he says that we must learn the lesson from other countries that we must combat and wipe out poverty, and amongst other things he talks about Cuba. Is it the function of the Leader of the Opposition in South Africa to draw a comparison here between conditions in Cuba and in South Africa. The Black man and the Brown man and the White man in South Africa have a higher standard of living than people anywhere else in the world, even including the United States. And then the hon. the Leader of the Opposition gives the following advice to the Government, “You must show that you can do it better than the communists do it elsewhere Is there any country in the world where the communists are doing for their subjects what we are doing for the people in South Africa? But I want to say this; this is an organized attempt, not only on the part of the Press but also on the part of the Opposition, to present South Africa in the minds of our Western friends abroad in an abhorrent and repulsive light.

That is a scandalous statement.

There are four things that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition wants to bring home to the outside world in order to prejudice South Africa.

That is sabotage.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

In the first place they want to suggest to the world that the freedom of the individual is being restricted in South Africa. They know that that is an idea which is absolutely abhorrent to countries which have been involved in war over the past 20 to 30 years. In the second place they suggest that the Government’s political opponents are being suppressed in South Africa and they know that that is an idea which is absolutely abhorrent to the Western nations. And in the third place they want to attribute Nazism to us and to the Government because they know that there is nothing more abhorrent to Britain, to France, to America and other Western nations than a Nazi. There is no bigger swear-word in the Western world than to call a person a Nazi. There is no bigger swear word than the term Nazi in Holland or in Belgium or in France or in England or in the United States of America.

You were friends of the Nazis.

The hon. member is encouraging it now. He does not want to say that we are Nazis, to-day, but he says that we were Nazis in the past. He makes that accusation against me. Do you know what he was doing in those days when they said this about us? He was sitting in a war tank in Durban, too scared to leave Durban. In the fourth place they have been attempting, an attempt with which they have had some success over the past 12 years, not only to attribute Nazism to South Africa but to present us as a police state. Sir, I ask any hon. member on the other side whether that is the South Africa that they know? I have read out to you what they said in 1950. Since then 12 years have elapsed, 12 years of a police state, of Nazism, of the jackboot, as they put it. They themselves are the people who bring the evidence; the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg), the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and others are the people who testify with us that there is peace and quiet and calm in this country to-day. The hon. member for Peninsula talked about the “calmness which permeates through all sections”. That is the position after 12 years. But what has happened in these 12 years?

Why then is this Bill necessary?

My argument is that the same things were said in 1950, twelve years ago. And what has happened in the past 12 years? Not one of these things that they prophesied eventuated. During these 12 years there have been six elections in South Africa, and over the past four years there has been a democratic election in South Africa every year.

That is a bit thick.

I agree with the hon. member for Yeoville; democracy weighs heavily with us. There have been four elections and the hon. member and his party lost every one of them. During the 12 years which have elapsed since they said these things, there have not only been six elections but new political parties and organizations such as the Black Sash, the Torch Commando and the Progressive Party have come into being. They have all had a free hand. I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) whether she has ever felt that she has been subject to restrictions, or whether she has ever been afraid that restrictions would be placed upon her.

I do not frighten very easily.

The hon. member misunderstands me; I am talking about politics. I say that these parties and organizations have come into being in this police state and that they have been able to take part freely in elections. Moreover, although they predicted that we would become a police state we are constantly faced with this problem that non-Whites outside our borders are flocking into this so-called police state, to such an extent that we had to appoint a commission of inquiry under the chairmanship of the hon. member for Heilbron (Mr. Froneman) to go into this matter because this influx was creating a difficult problem for South Africa. The high treason trial took place according to the highest traditions of the Bench, a fact to which experts from abroad testified. Even Luthuli was given his visa to go and receive his Nobel Prize. And do you know what happened? Luthuli did not remain there; he came back to South Africa, back to this police state.

He had to come back.

Surely he could have stayed there. After all there is a great deal of money attached to the Nobel Prize; he could have stayed there.

But let me mention another matter. Is it not a remarkable fact that when the representatives of UNO went to South West Africa and one of them got into difficulties in the Zambesi unfortunately, the people who went to seek help and who shouted, “Our master is drowning”, were two prisoners? That is what happens in this police state! But I go further. Stanley Uys went to Ghana and there signed a declaration against South Africa. He came back to this police state and still continued to enjoy the privilege granted by you, Mr. Speaker, and by this House to sit in the Press gallery and to enjoy Lobby facilities. Then there is the case of Mr. Sowden who was at UNO. What did he do there? Many people regarded his action as treason. I was present when he did this. He disgraced himself there and humiliated South Africa. He comes back to South Africa and he continues to do the same work on the staff of the same newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail. But the best proof that not one of their prophecies came true is supplied by the Press itself. There is absolute freedom of the Press in South Africa and they are still continuing their campaign against South Africa. I have quoted what they wrote in 1950, and what is happening to-day again? This is what appeared on the front page of the Cape Times: “Move to make police state.” The Star: “Removing some more of the remnants of the rule of law.” The Rand Daily Mail: “The creation of a Totalitarian State in South Africa;” “Political Piracy”. And then they say—

Then I quote from the Sunday Express—

This is the police state that was prophesied in 1950, the police state in which all these things are still allowed to happen to-day. I have said that this is the sort of thing that was written in those days, but let me add that it was written by dishonest, deliberately dishonest people, sitting at their desks in their offices. Not one of their prophecies has materialized over the past 12 years, and today we are getting the same attacks again. If they want to be reasonable at all, then they should at least say to the public, “We said these things in 1950; they have not materialized, but we want to issue the warning that these things may happen at some future date”. But let me also say here that the public has had enough of the English-language Press in South Africa. Wherever one goes one finds that English-speaking people are sick and tired of the English-language Press in our country. They have had enough of this campaign. But I want to make this appeal to our English-speaking friends that the time has come for them to raise their voices in protest, and they can do so by writing letters. But I also want to make an appeal to the diplomats here in South Africa not to take any notice of the English-language Press, because that Press is not giving a true image of South Africa. The English-language Press will destroy itself in its efforts to break South Africa.

Finally I want to say a few words about Communism itself. The fact of the matter is that Communism is a monstrous danger the object of which is the liquidation of Western as well as the Eastern civilizations. Its aim is the total destruction of everything that is valuable to us as a democracy in the Christian, moral and political spheres, because they are intent not only on mastering the universe but on bringing about a metamorphosis in people’s thinking, in their way of life and their sense of values; in other words, the liquidation of Christianity as far as we are concerned. Mr. Speaker, if those are their objects, as we all know they are, do their activities to influence people not amount to sabotage? The very idea of Communism in democratic countries is sabotage. But apart from the communist ideology there is such a thing as the communist himself. He is different from us. A communist does not believe that he has a soul; the communist does not believe that he has a Maker; a communist does not believe that there is a life hereafter. The motto of Karl Marx and of every communist in South Africa is “in one word, I hate all gods”. The communist is an atheist who has no love; he is a cruel person whose watch-word is “revolution”. There is a complete absence of morality in his make-up. And it is this monstrous ideology and these human monsters and saboteurs and nobody else that we want to combat with this legislation. Hon. members must not delude themselves; the voters of South Africa, irrespective of their political affiliation, want this legislation. Where do we find the best evidence that the voters of South Africa want this legislation? At a time when this fight is going on, at a time when we have this attack by the Press and by the United Party, what is happening in South Africa? Mr. Speaker, my one regret is that I waited too long before buying shares; I should have bought long ago.

They are down again.

Yes, the hon. member welcomes it if there is the slightest recession. But the public of South Africa takes so much notice to-day of the United Party and of the Progressive Party and of the English-language Press that share prices are higher to-day than they have been for a very long time. Our people know that the world is being threatened, that there is a cold war going on, a war of ideologies, and as far as the cold war is concerned the whole of the Western world is in a state of war. General Smuts saw that very clearly when he said—

Let our friends amongst the Western nations, our friends who oppose Communism, take note of one thing and that is that this Bill once again affirms that South Africa has irrevocably declared herself against Communism, and, secondly, let industrialists and investors know that if they want to come to South Africa, or if they are here already, their possessions and investments in South Africa, as far as it is humanly possible for any Government to do so, will be protected not only against communists but also against saboteurs. That is the message which this legislation brings to the outside world—not the things written in the English-language Press. But let me conclude on this note that apart from our neighbours over the border, South Africa is the bastion to-day against Communism on the whole of the African Continent. And let me tell you, Sir, that my experience in America recently was that one of the things which has tremendously increased the prestige of South Africa in the eyes of every American whom I met there is the step that we took in 1956 in closing the Russian Consulate. That is the one thing that impresses those people and that makes them feel that South Africa is standing with them.

I want to ask the United Party now whose case they are promoting in adopting this attitude? The Western nations—the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) sits there looking at me now; I know what he is thinking. He is thinking of the two letters that he wrote in the Argus, good letters, and here I am addressing him specifically—the Western nations in their campaign against colonialism and thus against the White man are making the position easier for Communism in Africa; they are playing into the hands of the communists. We are all perturbed about it. Various hon. members have said this already, but the hon. the Prime Minister put it most clearly perhaps when he said the following in 1958—

Just as that is true of the Western nations, so it is true that the action of the United Party has the same effect in so far as communist aims in South Africa are concerned. The communists welcome the attitude of the United Party. And I say to hon. members opposite that they are doing incalculable harm to South Africa by adopting this attitude and that they are promoting communist motives with the attitude that their leader adopted here.

Sir, I am not going to pursue very far the several points made by the hon. member for Vanderbijlpark (Dr. de Wet), but with his last two or three sentences he perhaps has given us a pointer to some aspects of this debate in representing a particular point of view which I think is common to most hon. members on the other side of the House, and certainly it is one about which he obviously feels very strongly. He paints a picture of the official Opposition on this side of the House being virtually hand in glove with communists because of our attack on this Bill. That is the picture which he tries to paint and other members have tried to paint that picture.

It looks very much like it.

Mr. Speaker, it is all of a kind. Let us assume for the sake of argument that that was indeed a basic principle which could be adduced from the fact that in Parliament in serving their country to the best of their ability, the official Opposition decided to oppose the Bill introduced by the Government. Let us presume that it could be fairly adduced that in their decision to oppose the Bill, though honestly concerned with the principles, they were nevertheless blind to the possibility that they would be serving the cause of Communism, however indirectly, and however through lack of foresight. But then, Sir, what was the duty of the Government? Was it not the duty of the Government when they come with a Bill like this to see that as far as possible they take all the law abiding, responsible people of all colours with them when they come with a Bill like this to Parliament? Would that not have been the responsibility of the Government? You see, Mr. Speaker, if indeed the Government really believed that here was a case where the Opposition might be wrong through lack of discernment, through lack of political discrimination and that there was a case to be made out for powers such as this Bill, then I repeat surely it was the normal thing then for the Government in those circumstances to try and take all responsible elements with it, not only one element in the country, but all responsible elements. The hon. members in that corner need not make rude noises. When the time comes that I believe I must speak on behalf of the Bantu in this House, I will speak on behalf of the Bantu and I will speak just as loudly on behalf of what I believe is fair and just to the Bantu, and how, as I see it, justice can be done to the Bantu. If they want to laugh that off, Sir, they can do so.

The hon. member for Vanderbijlpark seemed to take exception to a statement by my hon. leader that you cannot fight Bantu nationalism by calling it Communism.

That is what he said.

Yes, that is what exception was taken to Sir, that remark in some form similar to that, has been voiced in this House many, many times, and I can understand that hon. members on the other side may well be concerned when one bears in mind that their policy to-day is to create Bantu nationalism and that they are now afraid that it may be leading to what they themselves call “Communism”. Their policy as enunciated by the hon. the Prime Minister and lesser lights is to give the Bantu in their own states, separate citizenship. That basic principle of citizenship then constitutes the kernel of nationalism. The Bantu in a given state with their own individual citizenship, will see themselves as a nation.

Why not?

Precisely. I am glad that the hon. Minister is with me so far. Now we are getting somewhere because we are ad idem on that point. The Bantu then see themselves in a given state as citizens of that state, will see themselves as nationals of that state and they will see nationalism in the context of their own people, and it is quite futile then for hon. members, for political reasons, to say: What is Bantu nationalism; that is the Bantu building up an empire for themselves, and then to call that Communism! Why is it Communism? Is it Communism merely because it seeks an outlet which may be condemned in terms of our laws and may be condemned because it violates the principles of the maintenance of internal peace and security, as indeed outbreaks of nationalism from time to time, not only Black nationalism, have violated the principle of the maintenance of law and order? Sir, there is nothing unique about Black nationalism. But it does not change the position to call it “Communism”. Hon. members who stand up on the other side and protest their opposition to Communism and the way South Africa must fight Communism, are beating the empty air. That gets us nowhere. They know perfectly well that that is so, and what is more, they are relying upon the fact that if indeed there is a conflict with Communism, they can rely upon every member on this side of the House. They know it. And not only is it within their comprehension but within their own minds and deep within their hearts they are relying on it, and are pleased that it is so. But they know perfectly well that measures of this kind must be fought in a different arena altogether, in a different era, another field of human endeavour. So I say, let hon. members not try to pick on my honourable leader when he uses a phrase like that which has got in it deep political wisdom, a political wisdom which they would be very well advised to heed. Let us see what it is so far as the Bantu are concerned, if they are going to bring them into this argument, what is making them think the way they are thinking and go on the path they are following. If, Sir, we move away from them and we move to other races and for example we deal with White people who may be agitators, who may be communists, who may be whatever it is, folk of evil intent, people who are proposing to undermine our country, to undermine our laws and create conditions under which there will be a disturbance of the peace, possibly bloodshed or worse, and so forth, what are we going to do with them? We may choose to call those people communists. It may well be that they are. But, Sir, with all due respect to the hon. the Minister, and to hon. members on that side of the House, I, Sir, am refusing to equate mischief-makers, however deadly their intent may be, with Communism—as though all mischief-makers are communists and in South Africa all communists are mischief-makers. It may well be that all communists are mischief-makers—I am certainly not going to argue about that. It maybe the case—but I do deny that all mischief-makers are communists. Mr. Speaker, from the human mind, many, many and various motives move people in such a number of diverse fashions. It is quite incredible, the number of motives which will drive human beings to behave in such a manner or in such and such a manner. That is one of the difficulties I am facing at the present time with this Bill before us. Because I find myself viewing the whole of this Bill rather from this point of view that at a time of peace, the Government comes with this Bill, as has already been stated, but is this not a psychological question that is posed before us at the present time when a Bill like this is introduced? Is it not the case that where the communist is concerned, and I now mean the true communist, where the saboteur is concerned, where the man who will disrupt peace and order, for whatever his motive, is concerned, and there are hundreds of thousands of criminals who carry on criminal activities who are not communists—so I say: The criminal, the man who wants to disrupt order for whatever reason—is the position not this, that we in the main as peace-loving orderly people abhor the disturbance of our peace? Indeed, Sir, without the maintenance of law and order, civilization as we know it, cannot exist. There is a good reason for us to abhor those people. So, Sir, we reach the stage that if the Government comes with a Bill which is going to make sharp punishment effective in apprehending and punishing the wrong-doer who falls into one or the other of those categories, is the Government not taking advantage of a psychological link in human psychology, which sees itself easy to punish the man you think is going to harm you and to punish him heavily if you don’t like him anyway, because a picture, an image, has been built up in the public mind of a man who would wreck our state, a man who would create bloodshed and disorder? Is not then merely a psychological question that when such a picture is presented in human form and the hand of authority falls heavily on the shoulders of such a person, we are not going to be particular now as to whether the normal processes of law are followed, and whether indeed in terms of the normal processes of law that man is going to be given the opportunity of an innocent man? Are we in fact not already so predisposed to see him as something that is so objectionable that if we punish him quickly and very severely indeed, it does not matter if the punishment is a little too harsh, a little too severe?

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to put the position in which I see a Bill of this nature. There is an added reason, if I may suggest it, why we in South Africa at the present time are tending to see events in our own country in that partiular light, from that particular angle, and it is because of what is happening elsewhere, not only elsewhere in the wide world, but elsewhere on our own Continent. We see what is happening in other countries and what has happened in the past. In our own minds, without any doubt whatever, we are already conjecturing what the fate of certain other countries is likely to be which are still to-day under the governance of some of the Metropolitan Powers or White people who like ourselves come from Western Europe. We are foreseeing what is likely to happen to them and our minds are filled with forebodings because of what we have seen elsewhere. And that tends to colour our own approach to the problems confronting us here. But may I suggest that it would then be the duty of the Government as indeed the duty of Parliament to say: However we may resent it to follow this course, the course of treating people at this time as though they were pariahs and outcasts, merely because suspicion has fallen on them, must be resisted. We should resist that temptation at this time, more than at all other times. In times of war, in times of stress, civil commotion and tumult, when blood is being shed, trains are being wrecked, and so forth, then any government can be forgiven if it comes along and takes drastic measure to restore law and order. I think back to the policy that was followed by the late General Smuts who declared martial law in certain circumstances and who then would come with a Bill of Indemnity thereafter, a Bill of Validation of what had taken place. That was after the hog blood had been spilt.

Is that what you want me to do?

Business suspended at 6.30 p.m. and resumed at 8.5 p.m.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned for dinner, I was attempting to paint a picture of the psychological atmosphere in which we were living and the influence which was, inevitably, being felt here in the Republic as a result of events further to the North of us. I was saying that that was creating a situation where—to say in a few words what is in my mind—we were in danger of reaching a position where we were going to give effect to the old saying, “give a dog a bad name and hang him”. I said that I thought the Government, of all people, should at a time like this be careful that that should not be the policy dictated under the stress of the present position, not only in our country here, but in Africa as a whole, and elsewhere for that matter. Extreme care should be taken that the ordinary processes of law should be observed and that justice should not only be done, but that it should be seen to be done even in regard to those whom we hate. That was the point I was trying to make, and the picture which I was trying to paint.

I am no lawyer, Mr. Speaker, as you well know.

What about my question?

I am coming to that; I have not forgotten it. As I said, I am no lawyer, but only an ordinary farmer. I, therefore, try to see matters like these not in a legalistic light at all. As a matter of fact, I am not acquainted with the legal approach to some of the matters which are being dealt with here and, accordingly, I am not going to attempt to deal with them along those lines. That I will leave to other hon. members who are qualified to do it. After having said that, however, may I go a step further in regard to the atmosphere which has been created and say this: One sees in our courts how the greatest criminals, criminals with a long record of convictions behind them, are arraigned for crimes of the gravest nature, crimes which carry the utmost penalty, namely the penalty of life itself. But, Sir, what does the judiciary do under those circumstances? What do they do under those circumstances in terms of our own law and not in terms of a law which has been forced upon us? The judiciary knows nothing, officially at any rate, of the record of crimes of the criminal who is being brought before a judge or judges. Until such time as the judiciary is satisfied as to the guilt of the accused, no mention is made, nor is any cognisance taken of, his record of previous convictions, and no matter how grave those crimes were in terms of any of our laws, no cognisance is taken of such crimes, however grave they might be, until such time as he is found guilty of the crime for which he appears before the court. Until that moment, the judges sit there and are deaf and blind as regard any previous record the accused might have. Only when they come to inflict punishment, do they acquaint themselves with those crimes.

But what is the position under this Bill? I submit that this Bill reverses that procedure. In regard to the question of a prosecution, this can only be undertaken at the instance of an attorney-general, or acting attorney-general. On the very speech which was made by the hon. the Minister, the Attorney-General will be cognisant of the whole background of the man. Indeed, the Minister has made the point that the Attorney-General can be taken as a ordinary man of common sense, a man who has reached a certain position of responsibility in the service, and that it can be accepted that he will use his judgment to the best of his ability and that he will be objective. He will then decide whether action is to be taken under this Bill in respect of the new crime, which is defined as sabotage, against a person or whether such a person is to be prosecuted in terms of some other law. I want to make this point because to me it is a point which is fundamental. The first judgment as far as the accused is concerned, is in the mind of the Attorney-General when making that decision. And that surely must temper the whole procedure in the courts thereafter. The accused cannot be charged for the crime of sabotage until such time as the Attorney-General has applied his mind to the circumstances and has satisfied himself that a charge of sabotage is the right charge in terms of this Bill. No judge thereafter can sit in ignorance of the fact that the Attorney-General as a man who is well-schooled in the law has, after having applied his mind to the circumstances of the case, came to the conclusion that the accused must be arraigned on a charge of sabotage.

That happens with every prosecution.

No, it does not happen with every prosecution. I do hope that the hon. the Minister of Transport is not going to press that point because then I will leave it to the legal wolves behind me to tear him to pieces. May I now come to what I believe is an equally important point. In all fairness I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of Justice whether hon. members behind him are speaking with a degree of conviction in regard to the question of Communism. I have been in Parliament for a long time now and I am acquainted with the motives which underlie the speeches of hon. members which they make in this House. These motives vary; they vary just as much as the motives of a man who commits murder or manslaughter! They vary as much as that! Let me now make this point, namely that the fight against Communism—let me assure the hon. the Minister of that—in South Africa is not the fight of one political party, i.e. the Nationalist Party. It is, on the contrary, a fight of South Africa. Otherwise it is no fight at all. I want the hon. the Minister to believe that it is not a one-party fight. That is not the kind of tactics with which we are going to fight Communism in South Africa. I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to accept that as a basic premise. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

You traitor!

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them, Mr. Speaker, but that hon. member …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the words without any reservations.

I withdraw them, Mr. Speaker.

Can hon. members see what happens with these interjections which have no connection at all with the speech which is being made? I shall deal severely with interjections from now on.

Immediately before the supper adjournment I said that the hon. the Minister was taking certain powers in addition to those he already had under other Acts which are now being amended, and in respect of some of these Acts there has been support from the official Opposition whilst there has been opposition to others. These Acts are now being amended by this Bill. There is large number of these amendments—some of a major and others of a minor character. I then went on to say that in the past it was a fact that the late General Smuts when he was Prime Minister, had from time to time invoked martial law in order to deal with certain upheavals and disturbances in the country. The hon. the Minister then asked me across the floor “do you want me to do that?”. Now, let me say this at once that the reason why this Government came some time ago with proposals to vest new powers in the Minister, was to make it unnecessary for him to proclaim martial law. The reasons advanced for that at that stage were good reasons. I am going to be quite frank about it. There can occur a small upheaval, of a sharp and critical nature where the point of clash is reached, there is bloodshed, and civil commotion and tumult result, although on a small scale only however fierce the upheaval may be for the moment. I can well understand—and I accept it when the then Minister put it to us—that it is unnecessary to proclaim martial law just to deal with that little flare-up, even though it is a fierce flare-up, thereby spreading the word throughout the world that South Africa is under martial law. If martial law is proclaimed for that little flare-up, it will be magnified in the eyes of the world to such an extent that it will look as if the whole of South Africa needs to be put under martial law. In order to avoid this, the Government came forward with another law which permitted the proclamation of an area as being not under martial law but under a state of emergency. That overcame the difficulty with which not only the Government, but also the whole of South Africa was faced. The criticism of all the misdeeds of the Government, Sir, is criticism of South Africa. If this hon. Minister puts a foot wrong—as he might well do—it will be South Africa that will be castigated. Overseas peoples and organs are not going to single out the Minister of Justice. Most of them will not even know what his name is! They will say that it is South Africa that is acting like that. As I said, this new proposal was intended to save the good name of South Africa because a flare-up could then be put in its true perspective. But there was this aspect about martial law, namely that it was necessary afterwards to pass an Act validating and indemnifying the action taken. Thereby Parliament was placed in a position of being able to carry out a searching inquiry, in terms of Parliamentary debate, into all the circumstances under which martial law had to be proclaimed, and which led to certain actions being taken by the Government. Parliament could then assure itself whether or not the Government acted correctly by doing what it did. This particular safeguard, namely the investigation and validation by Parliament afterwards, was something which in terms of Parliamentary procedure and in terms of Parliamentary government, was a very fine instrument in terms of public policy because the people as a whole could then know that the Government could not abuse powers with which it was clothed to proclaim martial law for the purpose of doing certain things but thereafter remaining silent about them.

Do you prefer validation and indemnification after an act to the procedure proposed in this Bill?

That is the very question which I am answering at the moment because that was also the question which was put to me by the hon. the Minister. The fact is that it is not necessary to have martial law because the Government took powers enabling it to proclaim a state of emergency in respect of a small area. This has one great advantage, namely that the issue could be limited to that area instead of the whole country being made subject to martial law with the resultant attack on the country as a whole by those wishing to harm us. But, Sir, we would have lost the one advantage which came from martial law. I should like to suggest to the Minister that even at this late hour, or whenever the opportunity offers itself, he should make provision for Parliament being given the opportunity—not by laying on the Table a copy of the regulations which have been issued or anything of that nature—to debate the actions of the Government so that the Minister can be called to account for the exercise of the powers which Parliament has conferred upon him.

There is about half a dozen opportunities for members to do that in the ordinary course of events.

With due respect, Sir, I do not agree that there is half a dozen opportunities as the hon. the Minister wants to suggest. There are opportunities for certain members to come into a given debate from time to time but Parliament being what it is and our time being limited, that will not be a practical proposition to-day unless the Government is prepared to make time for a full discussion—not for a chance occasion on which the Minister has used his powers, although even this should not be ruled out, but where certain events take place of such a nature that there is public upheaval, civic tumult, etc. One of the aspects of this Bill which, therefore, worries me is that while the Government in terms of a previous Act has the power to limit the proclamation of an emergency to a given area, they now can extend that power to right outside that area. I am opposed to that because I think it is contrary to all the principles of our ordinary legal concept and administration of justice. I have explained why I think the Government should be particularly careful and jealous to adhere to the normal legal precept and practice at a time like this when we are in a state of peace.

I now want to come to another aspect of this Bill. My hon. leader has said that the definition of “sabotage” in this Bill was of such a nature, i.e. so loose, so wide and so inexact, that it must fill us all with alarm. I am not going to pursue this point further than by saying that it must fill us all with alarm. When I as a young man came first to public life in a provincial council, I had as my mentor a very experienced lawyer who was a member of the Executive Committee of the Province concerned, and became a senator afterwards—the late Mr. J. Macaulay. He time after time got up in the provincial council and said when a Bill was being discussed that it did not matter what the intention of the legislature, or of the administrator, or of the Executive Committee, or of anybody else, was, but that the written word prevailed. So in regard to this definition I must point out that it is the written word which will prevail. And let us here in Parliament not be guilty of the kind of the law while intended to do justice, shall do a grave injustice and that because of a definition which is so wide that its written terms permitted that injustice to be done.

The hon. member stated on behalf of his Party that they are against sabotage. Can he now give the House a definition of sabotage other than the definition contained in this Bill and how to prove intent?

I have already admitted my inability to follow legal language and concept. What is more, I do not think there is any duty upon me to find a legal definition of sabotage. Surely it is a duty of the Government to do that and then it should defend its definition and also its action in coming with such a definition as the basis for an Act.

The last point I should like to make in regard to this Bill is Clause 21 providing that a juvenile shall be treated for the purpose of judgment, etc. as if he is an adult. This, Sir, I believe to be a horrible provision. I believe that no man or woman of ordinary decent way of life in South Africa could contemplate that with equanimity if they knew what was happening. That a child of 14 years of age can be taken along and that the law can close its eyes to his age and treat him as though he is an adult person for the purpose of judgment and sentence, is I think a shocking thing. I should therefore like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to review this particular clause. What of these children who are under the influence of their parents? Which one of us has as a child not seen the picture of the youngster standing there at the time when the Royalists raided his home and being asked when he last saw his father? There is a counterpart of this in our own history. Are we going to have children who are under the influence of their parents, treated in that manner, i.e. treated as though they were adults with the knowledge and the ability to judge between right and wrong and that while they are still little children? I appeal to the hon. the Minister to withdraw this particular provision from his Bill, it will do his Bill no harm, but can only ease the conscience of the people who may have to swallow something which they do not like in the other provisions of this Bill.

The hon. member for South Coast here referred to a policy that is creating a Bantu nationalism. But hon. members opposite will not respond to what the public desire. For instance, they do not wish to regard sabotage as a criminal offence, but neither do they want to defend it. The fact of the matter is that they feel as we do in their heart of hearts. The hon. member for South Cost then again tried to divert the debate to native affairs, but when he could not manage that, he grasped at other arguments. It is obvious that he has not read any part of the Bill and that in any event he has not studied the clauses properly. But he asks us whether we seriously support this Bill. Yes, we support it in all sincerity, and why? We do so because we know that great dangers are threatening us, and I shall prove it. In every democratic state there is at the present time no more delicate problem than that of a small minority that tries, by means of subversive activities, to overthrow the Government of the day and to substitute foreign forms of government. They wish to bring about all this by violence. On the one hand it may be said that the suppression of these subversive elements will lead to the pegging down of sworn political opponents, something that is no less reprehensible than the deeds of the underminers themselves. We on this side do not wish to restrict political parties. There is freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and a person can rise and say what he wishes in the form of criticism of the Government of the day. But when a person is engaged on subversive activities with the object of overthrowing the Government, then it becomes a horse of a different colour. Now we wish to take action against subversive activities of this very nature by means of this Bill. In other words, we want to prevent dangerous people sabotaging our State by means of subversive activities. And whether hon. members opposite or we are at the head of affairs, it will make no difference to those who are engaged on subversive activities. There is the Suppression of Commuism Act which was passed in 1950, but which was opposed by the other side. To-day they come along with the very same arguments. Nothing came of the arguments they used in that year; yet they come along with the same arguments to-day again. They want to protect certain people against whom we on this side wish to take action, and can anyone deny, in the light of what has already happened in this country of our’s and in the light of what is happening in the world, that we are not fully justified in doing so? We know that subversive elements from outside are coming into our country, and surely it is the duty of any Government to take steps to protect its citizens. That we can only do by means of legislation. As the law now stands, there are loopholes and therefore it is the duty of the Government to close those loopholes and thereby safeguard our country against the inciters and exploiters. What is the man in the street saying to-day? Is he concerned about technical legal points, Mr. Speaker? Is he concerned about puerile criticism on the part of the United Party? No. He is concerned about what is happening in the country. He sees riots that are taking place and that sabotage is being perpetrated and he knows that we have no legislation to effectively combat it. It is the Government’s duty to protect the peace-loving citizens of the country and to arrest the inciters and punish them properly. I should like to ask the Opposition: Are you going to tolerate sabotage? They say “no”, yet they oppose this Bill? Why so? Why do they not say that they will support certain portions of the Bill at least and will try to improve other parts? Now they reject the Bill as a whole, and by doing so they are incurring the displeasure of the public of South Africa. I want to show that by so doing they are playing into the hands of the enemies of our country. They are protecting the subversive elements. One asks oneself whether the existing methods of combating these subversive activities are adequate. Let us then clearly appreciate that these subversive activities are being fomented by none other than the communistic internationale. In order to combat it effectively, we must in the first place have effective legislation, and in order to have that, we have to close the loopholes in the existing legislation. We have to make it safer for our citizens to move about and to continue their legitimate activities. If we find that the existing legislation does not go far enough, we have to pass additional legislation that will enable the Government to deport subversive elements or to stop subversive elements from entering the country. We have to unmask their activities, and reveal it; we have to keep them out of key positions; we have to restrict their activities by means of direct criminal sanctions; etc.

Of course we can keep out subversive elements with the aid of our immigration laws. Indeed, that is one of the best methods the Americans are applying to keep undersirable persons out of their country. There are organizations that do not show their heads, but are secretly devising and planning sabotage and violence with the object of overthrowing the Government. Another means they are using is the dissemination of inflammatory reading matter. We have to be on our guard against all these things. There are such elements in neighbouring states. However, we cannot combat it because we do not have the necessary legislation. Yet we have to do it. In America, for instance, there has been legislation to combat Communism since 1918 already. In the Heath Act of 1939, for instance, it is provided that all underminers in the United States have to be removed from the payroll of the Federal Government. It is unlawful also for an employee of the Federal Government to be a member of a subversive organization, on pain of being dismissed or prosecuted. We know that from 1941 to 1947 there were 101 dismissals under this particular Act, as the result of 6,193 investigations which were conducted. Our country does not have anything like this. America, on the other hand, takes active steps against subversive elements. In addition, the American Congress adds a rider to every Appropriation Act that is passed, since 1941. The rider prohibits the payment of funds to anybody who contemplates the overthrow of the Government by violence. Of much greater importance are the practical provisions of the “Loyalty Program” issued under Executive Order No. 9835 of 1947. This document provides that applicants for work in Government service may be rejected, or may be discharged, if there is reasonable grounds for assuming that the person concerned is not loyal to the Government of the U.S.A. So these measures are aimed at subversive elements, and are so widely put that not only suspected persons are kept out, but that it is impossible for officials to abuse their positions. However, the individual still has the right of appeal to the courts of law.

It was a point of criticism against the Minister who introduced this Bill also, that persons will not have the right of appeal when they have committed sabotage. If the Court finds him guilty of certain crimes, such a person still has the right to go to the Court in order to show that he did not have certain motives and he accordingly cannot be charged with sabotage. So he has that safety valve at his disposal. The same thing happens in America. A person may be charged, but he still has the right to go to the Court and to prove that he is innocent. There is the Taft-Hartley Act that was passed to enable steps to be taken against economic sabotage. Trade Unions can only become members of the Nation Labour Relations Board if every representative of a Trade Union makes an affidavit to the effect that he is not a member of the Communist Party. That is anybody that belongs to an organization that advocates overthrowing the Government in an unconstitutional manner. There are further Acts too. I shall refer to only a few of them. There is the McCormack Act of 1958, which provides for the registration of agents of foreign principals. Such registration is open to inspection by the public also, and it requires the following i.a.: Full information about the organization’s activities, its financial statements; publication of principals, the extent of control by foreign governments or political parties, and publication of names of all employees. Then there is the Voorhis Act of 1940 which is also aimed at subversive organizations. This Act provides that certain organizations shall produce full registration of data, namely: Firstly, organizations subject to foreign control and that are engaged in (i) political activities; (ii) military activities; (iii) political and military activities, all with the object of committing subversive acts and aiming at the overthrow of the Government with violence and force or threats. Then there are certain measures containing penalties against communist activities. There is the Smith Act (the Registration of Aliens Act), which makes it unlawful (i) to have as your object the overthrow of any Government in the U.S.A. by force or violence; (2) to distribute or publish written or printed matter propagating such an object; (3) to join or organize any group that aims at overthrowing the Government with violence. So in America 27 Acts against subversive activities have been passed until after 1949. I should now like to read briefly one small article written by one J. E. Johnsen. It is an American book entitled “Should the Communist Party be Outlawed?” After dealing with the whole subject of Communism and various aspects of the legislation in America, it says this—

That is precisely what we want to do. We also want to see to it that through a proper Bar, which will support our country, and which will interpret our laws properly, and which will not avail itself of petty things, we will be helped to safeguard our country. I should like to quote something in connection with this Smith Act to which I have just referred—

May I ask a question? I want to ask what presumptions there are against the accused, and secondly what minimum sentences are there?

I have not come to that point yet. I shall come to it just now and will reply then. [Laughter.] Hon. members may laugh. They also laughed when we passed the anti-communistic Act, and they told us how poor the legislation was and what a difficult time we were going to have, but what has happened? Our country was secured. We are living in Utopia in comparison with other countries. We see what is happening in America. They have greater troubles with the communists than we have at the present time. They have to pass legislation continually to keep matters right. But I am still coming to the other matter, and the hon. member must not try to divert me from my argument. I want to prove one thing only. They say we may not fine the people. Here the Americans come along and for a crime that is less heinous than sabotage, they are imposing a fine of 10,000 dollars, and in addition five years imprisonment, and that is the minimum. [Interjections.] The methods of pegging down communistic and subversive activities without recognizing the rights of the citizens of the country—in order to do that we have to a certain extent also to peg the ordinary civil powers. We cannot permit any citizen of the country to do just anything he likes and to contravene the law as he likes. When we make a Law such as this, and describe certain acts as offences, then surely it is logical that anyone committing such a crime will be guilty of it, and if such a person does not comply with the qualifications of further clauses, he will not be guilty of sabotage. If he perpetrates the deed, and is convicted of doing so, then surely he is a saboteur and then he must be punished. Why do hon. members opposite then protect such people? Why don’t they want us to punish such peoguilty of any serious crime, and has not recall a single case where a person has been gu91ty of any serious crime, and has not received his just punishment, or who was punished more severely than is provided for in our laws. Nor can I remember a single case where a person has been convicted of murder or any serious crime, or who was innocent and subsequently was found guilty by our courts. We are proud of our courts. We know that we have one of the best legal systems in the world. We are proud of our Attorneys-General and know we can trust them. They are not people who interfere in politics. They are people who do their work, and to express any misgivings about them is a scandal. I do not think it is the proper thing for hon. members to do so. Those people cannot defend themselves here where work is entrusted to them and by the Government—it is immaterial which Government is in power—they will carry it out in a proper manner. Hon. members opposite insist that this Bill is not good, but I have not yet heard a single argument as to why it is not good. We have to protect our people. We must not continue trying to permit people who commit sabotage to go free. In America and in other countries they have pegged them down, but we may not do so. They peg them down in Rhodesia, but we may not do so. When Rhodesia did the same thing, they did not remonstrate. I cannot recall an occasion when a law relative to Communism was before Congress in America, and when they called for aid in foreign countries, and besmirched America. No party there did that. Those people stand together to safeguard their country, and it is the duty of the Opposition to do the same. On investigating what the communists are doing on the home front and how they set about things, we shall find that in the first place they establish their communist party, and where it is declared unlawful, as here in South Africa, they go underground and continue to arrange their affairs. The second thing they do is to establish contact with the Communistic International. That has been proved by facts we have already heard in court, as the Minister told us yesterday. The third thing they do is to condition the local party to make the people dissatisfied and to encourage them to rise against the Government of the country—not against a political party, but against the Government of the country, and it is immaterial whether it is the Nationalists or the United Party or the Labour Party. They make the people dissatisfied with the government of the country, and then they go further and they have two aspirations or objectives. The one is to organize in cells, and then they have a procedure according to which they operate, and that is infiltration and to exercise discipline over their own people. I want to mention an instance to prove that. The hon. the Minister has told us of the one witness who disappeared and probably was murdered. It is the organization and the discipline in their own party that does that. That shows what discipline they have among their own people, although they are underground. They go still further, and there are certain things they do on their own party lines. They arrange with their communistic contacts overseas to do certain things, but the people they use do not always know what their real objectives are. They play their role in the political parties too. They try to infiltrate into certain government offices, in education and in the ordinary organizations of persons who are quite uninimical, and where they did not manage to do so with the White man in South Africa, they have done so with the Native. When we think of the Government officers in the Native homelands that were set in turmoil by them in the past—we have that evidence in court cases, and we think of the Education Department, who are the people who are the greatest communists and who to-day are overseas? They are the young Natives who showed that they were cleverer than the ordinary Native, who had certain educational qualifications, and they have been taken out of the country to other countries to take certain courses, and they have been brought back and used to become the greatest agitators in the country. I want to mention one case, that of the small Kaffir who jumped about here, Kgosane, who was at the University of Cape Town, and he did not come to University at his own expense. He came there through certain organizations and they were supported by the communists. That merely goes to show how they operate. Then they have a disciplined group who have to plot and conspire and agitate to fight the Government in any manner whatsoever. They also have a system of infiltration to infiltrate into various organizations and then get control in such a way that the people do not notice it. They will even go to the extent of speaking well of the Government’s objectives, so long as they can get persons in there to undermine the Government. They will do just anything to assume leadership. They will be bound to the rules of any organization as long as they can go further and in due course assume control of that organization. But what is the most disturbing fact to us, is that they are beginning to seep in amongst the youth at the universities. That is a great problem we shall still have to deal with a lot. They infiltrate in the political sphere among organized labour. They are infiltrating into the Liberal Party. They also have organizations that are actively operating under the Progressive Party and the United Party. There are communists who are members of all three of those parties. But there also are some of them who are members of the United Party, and who do not pretend to be communists, but are exerting certain pressure on them, as in the case of this Bill. Indirectly they are using that party as their minions. They are going further. They have certain learned members who exercise influence in arts and the sciences. We have seen where people have advocated their cause in the churches, prominent priests, ex-Judges, etc. I do not hesitate to say that, for they are playing directly into the hands of the communists, and we know it, and the country knows it. [Laughter.] The hon. members may laugh, but that is a fact. We are trying to safeguard our country, as other countries are doing. We are not trying to peg down the ordinary citizens and make criminals of them. We are trying to safeguard our country. It is the duty of every citizen of the country to see to it that what has happened in countries such as Czechoslovakia and Rumania, will not happen to us. But I should like to ask them, if those people today use them to oppose us to stop us passing this Bill, not to stop communists and saboteurs, what are they going to do if those people triumph one day? Will they have a free pass and freedom of speech? Will they publish articles in the newspapers criticizing the Government? The communists will see to it that they choose their own people, and there will be one candidate for one party. Then the right to vote again will be lost. I am surprised that people with sound commonsense, such as the hon. members of the Opposition, can fight this measure; their names will be recorded in Hansard, and it will be history. I know what goes on in the heart of the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) and other hon. members also, but they are going to be deliberately recorded in history as persons who fought this measure and they know in their heart of hearts they are doing the wrong thing.

And you want to hang children.

That hon. member talks nonsense. [Interjections.] Under democracy there are liberties that will not be surrendered easily. The hon. members have told us we are going to peg down the individual and that the individual will have a hard time, and we are going to tie down the newspapers, but there is freedom of the Press and freedom of speech, and freedom of everything in our country, but when a saboteur comes along and tries to subvert us, we must say nothing; then we should remain quiet. [Interjection.] The hon. member for Wynberg (Mr. Russell) should not talk, for I do not believe he is interested in this Bill. He is simply a Boerhater. [Interjections.] There are certain members who do not distinguish between the Government of the country and a political party. He can say as much as he likes against the political party. We are not infallible and we make mistakes and nothing will happen to him. The hon. member for Hillbrow ought to be ashamed of himself for voting against this Bill, and who is going to call him to account? Posterity. If posterity falls under the heel of Communism, they will blame them and say: You are the people who at the time should have stood by the Government. But they won’t do so. They just do not want the Bill to pass, and why? Because they are the tools of Communism. That is so, indirectly, and I shall prove it, for the communists are playing a very shrewd role. And it is not I who say this; all the Americans are saying so. Just read the discussions they had in Congress on their laws against Communism. But there they stood together, the Opposition as well as the Government, to fight Communism, and they did not permit their country to be embarrassed. It has been said here by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) that we are now permitting Black nationalism to develop. This Bill is as much a protection for the Bantu as for the White man, for the greatest danger at the present time is that communists are infiltrating, not so much among the White people, but among the Bantu, and where the Bantu are vulnerable to Communism … [Interjections.] Because they are susceptible to Communism, for certain reasons all of us know well, they are trying to infiltrate among the Bantu, and if we do not help and assist them, what is going to happen? If we can win the Native to our side and can show him that he will achieve nothing through Communism—and their leaders are also beginning to see that; they see what is happening in Ghana. In Ghana America gave them money to develop, and they bought golden beds, but then the Russians came along, and the Russians are not giving them money but aeroplanes and arms. But the Russians are beginning to undermine them and it will not be long before Ghana is a communist state. There is no Opposition. There is no freedom of the Press or of speech. The individual cannot move about as he wishes and say what he likes. But what is the position in South Africa? Every member sitting here may criticize the Government as much as he likes, and he is not committing a crime. He can write what he likes in the newspapers. But if he commits sabotage, it is a different matter, and if any member of the Government commits sabotage, he will be punished, and I do not believe it will be abused. What Minister will abuse it? [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, the tone of this debate is exemplified by the speech of the last speaker. He and every other speaker on that side of the House has followed in the footsteps of the Minister of Justice. [Interjections.]

On a point of order, the hon. member for Beaufort West is calling hon. members here “verraaiers” and I ask that he should be called to order.

I am not the hon. member for Beaufort West, but if the hon. member refers to me I withdraw it unconditionally that I said that the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) was a “verraaier” (traitor).

The speech of the hon. member who has just sat down is typical of the tone set for this debate by the hon. the Minister. It is regrettable to have to say it, but that is a fact. The tone that has been set is that every speaker so far from that side of the House has made a speech totally unrelated to the provisions of the Bill before the House. We have had speaker after speaker getting up and saying what a shocking thing it is to have communists in this country, and how they must be fought and must be put down and what a bad thing it is to have sabotage and saboteurs. But listening to these hon. members, one would think that this is the first time that this House had to consider a measure to combat this evil of Communism. Not one single member, including the hon. the Minister, has attempted to tell the House what this Bill means and what effect it will have and how the mischief which apparently is done from time to time by communists can be related to the Bill. If ever there was a Bill which should have had a White Paper explaining what the difficulties were which could not be met by the existing legislation and how these provisions were devised to combat those evils, it is this Bill. But we have had nothing. All we have had is a statement by the Minister saying that conditions are very different now, and he waved his fists, which was quite an extraordinary sight … [Interjections.]

Order!

And what did he say? The Minister said that anyone who was against this Bill was in favour of Communism and was supporting saboteurs. Is that not a most shameful statement to make? It is a thoroughly irresponsible statement for a Minister of State to make, but it exemplifies the charge I make against him and other hon. members opposite, and that is that they have failed utterly to deal with the specific provisions of the Bill. One would have thought that when a measure of this gravity came before the House one would have a semblance of responsibility from hon. members. The proper tone for this debate was set by two speakers on this side of the House, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). Do hon. members opposite imagine for a moment that if there is sabotage in this country the members on this side of the House will be spared it? Will it not be our crops that are burnt in the same way as those of hon. members opposite? Will we not suffer in every way if sabotage takes place in the same way as hon. members opposite? Do we not have a stake in this country which we want to protect every bit as much as hon. members opposite? Can it be said against hon. members on this side of the House that we are content to have our system of government changed to Communism?

Yes, as long as we do the work and you can enjoy the benefits of it.

Does the Minister of Information imagine that his importance in this community is so great that he alone will be singled out by saboteurs? Let us face the fact that if there is any disruption from communist sources or any other sources, they will strike against hon. members here every bit as hard as against hon. members opposite. [Interjection.] Let us at least adopt a tone of gravity in this debate, and try to analyse these things. If there is disruption everybody will suffer equally, and it is from that point of view that we on this side are entitled to say that we are against Communism and sabotage every bit as much as the Minister himself. But we will fight to the death to see that any legislation that is introduced to combat those evils does not at the same time catch in its net quite innocent persons. That is the basis of our opposition to this measure. Let us for a moment look at the main reason advanced by the Minister as to the necessity for this Bill. He dealt at length with the activities of communists in the Transkei. He painted a vivid picture of how things were upset there by the activities of communist agitators, mostly White ones, and gave that as the principal reason for introducing this legislation. It is no use the Minister shaking his head. That was one of the principal reasons for this legislation.

I should like to deal for a moment with the question of what should be done to combat this evil, without this Bill presently before this House. I am going to state a few things which the hon. the Minister knows about but which he studiously avoided referring to in his speech. At the present time, and under existing legislation, the Minister can deal with communist agitators in the Transkei in the following manner. He can ban any agitator from the Transkei; if he is a foreigner he can deport him from the Republic. He can prohibit him from attending any gathering anywhere, including the Transkei. He can call for an investigation to be made into any organization with which that agitator is associated. He can cause an investigation to be made into any newspaper or publication with which that agitator is associated. He has full powers in both those regards of interrogation, search and seizure of articles or documents. After the investigation he can ban the organization or publication and he can liquidate its assets. If the organization is communistic or if the agitator is a communist or if he is merely a fellow traveller, or if the Minister believes that it is likely that it will further any of the objects of Communism, any of them, he can deal with it in the same way by banning, search, seizure and liquidation. Under the existing legislation the Minister—any Minister in his position; I am not referring to this particular Minister—through his officials can effectively seal off from the Transkei any communist agitator and fellow traveller. He can effectively silence and keep out of the Transkei any communist agitator at the present time without taking any single additional power contained in this Bill. He can effectively prevent any communistic activity by such agitators in the Transkei or anywhere else. He can stop any political activity by such a person and he can prevent him from disseminating any political views or any political literature. What additional power is required by the Minister to deal with that agitator in the Transkei? All the Minister needs, Sir, is not additional laws, what he needs is activity. He should go out under his existing powers and catch those agitators. All the laws in the world will not help him if he and his personnel are not prepared actively to go out into the field and to catch those people and to detain them. That is where the fault lies, Sir. The Minister does not need additional powers. He needs activity against these people. The hon. the Minister says that he needs additional power to ban meetings on the Parade. He used that as an example, to prevent communistic agitators from spreading their views. What the Minister has not told this House, Sir, is that under existing legislation he can put in gaol any communistic agitator who so much as says one word on the Parade. The Bill which we are considering at the present time is, of course not designed to enable him to prevent meetings from taking place not merely on the Parade or on the Town Hall steps of Johannesburg, but anywhere in the Republic. If, under existing legislation the Minister can effectively prevent any communistic agitator making use of the Town Hall steps in Johannesburg or the Parade in Cape Town, why does he need these broad additional powers to ban meetings not only in those two places but anywhere in the country? Meetings totally unrelated to any communistic activity at all. I think the House and the country are entitled to know why these additional powers are being sought. It is the one thing, I say again, which not a single member on that side of the House has as yet told us. Not a single member on that side of the House has told us why the existing legislation, which can control all these evils we have heard about, has proved to be inadequate and why it is necessary to take far wider powers in addition to deal with every example which has so far been given to us. Not only has the Minister powers under the Suppression of Communism Act to deal with meetings of a communistic nature or meetings by fellow travellers on places like the Parade, but he has powers at the present time under the Riotous Assemblies Act to ban any gathering on the Parade or anywhere else which might incite hostility between the races or encourage Communism or cause disorder. He has those powers, Sir. I ask again: Why is it necessary to take these additional powers to ban any meetings at all? We have not been told. And until we are told, Sir, we can only draw an inference adverse to what has so far been expressed by that side of the House. One can only assume, Sir, that these additional powers are required to ban and to stifle expressions of views by persons other than communists. The hon. the Minister laughs. He has got the powers to ban the communists. He has got the powers to ban fellow travellers. Why does he require these additional powers? He is not going to ban his friends with those powers.

You never know.

He is presumably going to ban not communistic enemies but other persons and one hesitates to imagine who those other persons might be.

What a dirty insinuation!

There is only one inference that can be drawn, Sir.

On a point of order, Sir, can the hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Schoonbee) suggest that the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) is making a dirty insinuation?

Did the hon. member say that?

Mr. Speaker, I said what a dirty insinuation …

Withdraw, and say you are sorry.

Order, order!

Mr. Speaker, may I address you on this point?

Order! No, the hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir.

There is only one inference to be drawn and that is that the hon. the Minister wishes to ban political parties other than communist parties. That is the only inference, unless the Minister has some other motive that he may wish to tell the House about at some later stage.

Let me deal for a moment with Clause 2 of this Bill which the Minister told us very little about. That clause gives to the Minister the power to ban any organization that has been established for the purpose of carrying on directly or indirectly any of the activities falling under “unlawful organizations”.

What is wrong with that?

The Chief Whip asks “What is wrong with that”? I do not believe the Chief Whip has read this Bill. If he has he could not have understood it. Let me give one example to the hon. member. One of the activities of Communism is the holding of political meetings. Any political party includes amongst its activities the holding of political meetings. With no similarity at all, the hon. the Minister, in terms of Clause 2, can ban any organization which carries out the activity of holding a political meeting. It is as simple as that. The mere fact that a communist party has political meetings as one of its activities and the mere fact that other political parties have the same activity amongst their activities, is sufficient to allow this hon. Minister to ban those political parties. It is as simple as that. I shall be very pleased to have the Minister’s denial of that and an explanation of his denial to justify the smirk which presently creeps over his comely face. [Interjections.] Why take these powers then? What is the need for these powers unless they are aimed at parties other than communist parties and fellow travellers?

May I ask the hon. member a question? When communists meet do they advertise the fact that they meet as communists?

I have no experience of Communist Party meetings. Perhaps the hon. member should direct his question to the hon. the Minister.

Let us look for a moment at the institution of house arrest. We are to believe apparently that this is a desirable feature of relaxation and something which will allow Communism to be controlled without the harshness which will be associated with putting a man in gaol or anything like that. I do not think I have ever come across a provision quite as impractical as this one. I suppose we have to assume that the man’s telephone will be cut off otherwise he will be able to talk to the whole world by telephone. He is confined to his house presumably, let us say, from five o’clock in the evening to seven o’clock the following morning. Is there going to be a policeman stationed outside his house all night in order to see that he does not go out? In order to see that no one comes in to see him? Is he going to have a policeman standing over him at his work between the hours of seven in the morning and five in the afternoon to see that he does not communicate with others? The whole thing is quite absurd, Sir. To suggest that by confining a man to his house during the hours of darkness, for example, you are effectively combating Communism is so much foolishness. The whole answer to this thing was succinctly put by the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay). He said that as long as you allowed any form of human contact between people in a society, if there was fertile ground for any pernicious activity, it would spread. The only way in which the hon. the Minister can stop it is to cut off entirely communication in every sphere by those people with the rest of the community.

I should like to come back for a moment to the question of the Transkei. I have attempted to point out to the hon. the Minister that he has all the powers at his command at the present time, powers which, if put into effect with vigour and determination, could bring the communist agitators there to boot. That cannot be denied, Sir. But until the hon. the Minister gets the co-operation of the people there, the co-operation of the ordinary Bantu living in the Transkei, he is going to have a very difficult job indeed in bringing to boot any communist agitator with the powers he already has even together with the powers he is seeking under this Bill. I venture to suggest that his difficulty at the present time in stopping the agitation which he tells us about in that part of the world is because he has not got the co-operation of those people, the co-operation of the ordinary Bantu of the Transkei. They are people who talk; they keep nothing to themselves. Had he had their co-operation his agents—I presume he has agents there; every Minister would—would have been able to catch the communist agitators within 24 hours. It is a sorry state of affairs, Sir, if all his efforts in that regard are useless because he has not got that cooperation.

I should like to come to the question of sabotage as defined in this Bill. There has been a great deal of talk about the question of sabotage. But apart from the speeches from this side of the House, very little has been said about Clause 21 of the Bill. Let us look for a moment at sub-section (2) where it is provided that a man shall not be convicted of sabotage in terms of this clause if he proves that the commission of the offence was not committed with a whole series of intents. The magic words in this clause are these that his activities must be “objectively regarded”. Now, Sir, if those words are given their ordinary meaning, any person who is prepared to understand what they mean, will understand one of the principal objections of this side of the House to that particular clause. Because, Sir, the activities of the individual—remember the onus is on him to disprove it—are not looked at subjectively, they are not looked at in the light of what he himself intended, but they are looked at from the point of view of a bystander observing what took place. One has the grave difficulty pointed out by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) that if one is caught in suspicious circumstances, no matter how innocent one might be, objectively regarded one is guilty, even if one proves conclusively that one had no such intent at all. The Judge can say to an accused person: “I believe what you say, you are telling the truth; I am quite satisfied that you had no intention to encourage the achievement of any political aims”—to take one of the many things one has to prove—“but a bystander observing what you did would come to the conclusion objectively regarded that you did have that intent and I must therefore find you guilty of sabotage.” That is the situation in this Bill as it stands and hon. members opposite wonder why speakers from this side of the House say that this particular clause is in every way inelegant, to say the least, and thoroughly undesirable. The hon. Minister of Transport, who is not here at the moment asked the hon. member for South Coast “How do you define sabotage”? The answer was given by the hon. member for Edenvale (Mr. G. H. van Wyk). He referred to the Rhodesian legislation. He has obviously not read it otherwise he would not have made that reference. Because one need only look at the Rhodesian legislation to get some guide as to how this problem can be dealt with in clear, recognized legal language, related to existing common law offences. One has only to look also to the war measures of the United Party in that regard, where every offence—the hon. Minister will agree with this—is related to common law offences, murder, arson, malicious injury to property, man-stealing, culpable homicide, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and a host of other recognized common law offences. All you need do, Sir, is to apply an additional penalty if you like to one or other of those common law offences, and you will have a far more workable and far more easily grasped, and a far safer definition of sabotage than you have in this unwieldy and harsh measure.

I should like to refer for a moment to some of the speeches which have been made by hon. members opposite. We had a tirade from the hon. member for Smithfield (Mr. J. J. Fouché Jnr.) about the United Party’s war measures. I have already dealt to a certain extent with those. They bear very little relation to Clause 21 of this Bill. They consisted of recognized common law offences. There was no question about putting some six or eight major onuses on the accused. Admittedly there was a minimum penalty; admitted in one small aspect of many there was “an” onus—not the entire onus—on the accused, because in every case the Crown still had to prove the intent necessary for murder or arson or malicious injury to property or any of the other common law offences. That onus was still on the Crown. To suggest that the United Party legislation during the war was the same as this is quite absurd. While I am on the question of onus, let me come to the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze). He posed a number of questions to the effect that how much health and safety must be threatened before these measures were to be enacted He referred to the hon. the Minister’s statement that this country was peaceful and he suggested that there must be a great deal of damage done to property and persons before these measures should be brought in. He suggested that that was our point of view. Mr. Speaker, the answer is quite simple. In respect of every example he gave, in respect of the long list of offences read out by the hon. member for Edenvale, the Statute laws which exist, the common law as it exists, provide a penalty and a punishment in every single instance without exception. What is the necessity for this? Unless it is to get at activities which are not covered by those laws at the present time.

You know there is not an effective punishment for sabotage.

It is childishly elementary that there is no offence of sabotage at the present time. Why do we need to define it in Clause 21 if we already have it? Sabotage does not happen without any basis. Sabotage is made up of arson, or murder, the use of explosives, the use of a gun, the use of some weapon or tool or instrument, the application of force, the coming together of people to further that end, etc. For everyone of those elements there is an existing law and there is an existing offence and there is an existing punishment. There is no magic in the term “sabotage”, Sir.

So there is no necessity for this Bill?

There are many usages of that word in the modern world, Sir, which are quite unrelated to the elements which make it up. And as I have already said we have an offence in respect of all those elements at the present time To return to the hon. member for Standerton: He spent a great deal of time on reviewing legislation where there is an onus on the accused. He referred to the insolvency laws and he referred to a number of other laws. Finally he referred to the gem, Sir, he referred to Scoble’s book on Evidence. He dealt with the point that it is a maxim of English law which has been adopted here that where an individual has knowledge the onus is on him to disprove that.

You could not have been in the Chamber when I spoke.

The hon. member must not feel so diffident about this; I am going to compliment him, Sir, on his research and in revealing a maxim very appropriate to civil law but utterly unconnected with criminal law.

May I ask a question? Has the hon. member ever heard of the case of Worthington vs. the Director of Public Prosecution?

I know that case well, Sir, it is in regard to the elementary proposition that in all criminal cases the onus is on the Crown to prove its case.

There is one other aspect of this Bill which gives me some concern and it is this. The Minister himself admits that he has cast the definition of the crime of sabotage so wide that people innocent of that offence will technically be caught within the net. The hon. the Minister said that himself. That in itself is surely the most tremendous condemnation of this Bill, when the hon. the Minister has to admit that the net must be cast so wide that people innocent of the crime will technically be caught.

But not innocent of a crime.

“Innocent of the crime” were my words. Innocent of the crime of sabotage. The hon. the Minister admits that where that situation arises there is already an offence of a minor nature which could deal with that technical offence of sabotage. But it is left to the Attorney-General to decide whether to indict that man for the very major offence of sabotage with the minimum penalty of five years or death sentence or whether to indict him for some minor offence. In most cases that involves a political decision. How unfair, Sir, to place on the Attorney-General a political decision of that nature. It is not in his province.

It is factual; not political.

The Attorney-General’s job is this: If the facts are placed before him and those facts constitute prima facie an offence he is bound to indict. I think the hon. the Minister will agree with that. But if he has to decide on a political or quasi political issue, it places an impossible burden on a responsible civil servant. Unless, Sir, the difficulty is overcome this way: Why can’t the decision be taken by the hon. the Minister himself, a political decision whether to indict a person on a criminal charge or a minor charge on the same set of facts? What difficulty will the hon. the Minister be placed in? He will only have information given to him which his detectives have revealed from their own investigations He will have to rely on the information given to him as a result of an investigation into the affairs of an individual. The Minister will have to go through papers. The Minister who has been in practice himself will know how often it happens in practice that when the full facts are placed before the court a completely different picture appears from that which appeared to the investigating officers at the time of the indictment. By that time for the individual concerned the die would have been cast. He will already have been indicted for the major offence possibly, and what is to happen at that stage when it is found that this should not have been a case where the man should have been indicted for treason but that he should have been indicted for some trifling minor offence. How unsatisfactory can you get when you have a piece of legislation which allows all these difficulties to arise? I say again in all sincerity to the hon. the Minister that if he had come forward with a piece of legislation defining the crime of sabotage, if he wishes, although I believe it can be adequately dealt with under existing legislation, he should have confined himself to the known elements of murder, arson, malicious injury to property and so forth. Deal with them by relating them to tumult and public disorder and providing increased penalties to those offences if he wishes. But do not come, in all conscience, with a major and all-embracing clause such as this, wrapped up with 20 other clauses which impinge upon the freedom and liberty of the individual and which have nothing whatsoever to do with sabotage, and then to try to steamroller it through this House by saying to those of us who sit on this side: If you are against this Bill you are in favour of Communism and you are in favour of sabotage. It is an insult not only to hon. members on that side but it is an insult to hon. members on this side of the House. We have tried to deal with this thing on its merits. We appreciate the difficulties which face the hon. the Minister. He can deal with the situation without this Bill. It can be done. Why then bring forward a hybrid measure which gets at, not only the people he wants to get at, but possibly a host of other people who, according to the Minister (and I accept it) he does not wish to embroil in this legislation.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat said that he approaches this Bill with great sincerity and in good faith. He used the English word “sincerity.” In spite of that professed approach he came along with petty criticism of parts of the Bill to try to build up a case which, in spite of his good intentions, will show that this Bill is so unacceptable that a person such as he cannot support it. He said i.a. that Clause 21, the sabotage Bill, is an inelegant and thoroughly undesirable clause. I can tell him that his submissions against this Bill and the attitude he has adopted has been an inelegant attitude, and viewed politically, a thoroughly undesirable attitude in South Africa. I do not wish to follow him in the petty legal details with which he tried to cloud the issue. The hon. member had the temerity to profess an attitude of great judicial and juridical knowledge of the matter. I should like to deal with only his last small points. He asks why should the Attorney-General decide whether he will prosecute on a given set of facts, for the crime of sabotage or for the ordinary common law offence that may be involved. He submits it must be the Minister’s decision whether there should be a prosecution under the sabotage clause or not. Mr. Speaker, is that not a debating point without substance? Would they not have complained ten times more if the Minister and not the Attorney-General had to decide? But the substanceless debating point is made, not on the merits of the matter, but to provide clamor material for the wranglers on the street-corners of South Africa and of the world. He comes along with a further story and asks what will happen in the tragic case if the Attorney-General, on the information furnished by the detective, decides that the set of facts reveals sabotage, and if the case continues and it appears in Court that in fact it is not sabotage? Then, says the hon. gentleman, the die has been cast; the injustice has been perpetrated irrevocably on the accused. Has anyone as learned as he not yet heard of the withdrawal of a case? Does he not know that the Attorney-General may withdraw a case when he discovers a mistake in the course of the case, even at the last moment? No, such elementary things are beyond the erudition of the hon. gentleman. In reply to the hon. member for Standerton in regard to the question of the creation of a special crime of sabotage, he says that there is a penalty attached to all the common law components of the crime of sabotage. But the submission of the hon. member for Standerton was this, that the penalty imposed for the common law components of sabotage are insignificant whereas the crime of sabotage, in the cases where the formal act is accompanied by the intention to endanger the State, requires a harsher penalty, according to all laws of logic. That is the point to which he did not reply. The common law penalty for those acts is not adequate. Before I leave this hon. member, I should like to deal with his masterpiece. In regard to Clause 21 (2) he submits that the wording “No person shall be convicted of an offence under sub-section (1) if he proves that the commission of the alleged offence, objectively regarded, was not calculated and that such offence was not committed with intent—” that the words “objectively regarded”, amount to an objective inference in connection with the intention of the act “Objectively calculated” is concerned with the causal element of the act, and that is why the element of the subjectively view and intention follows. If a person hurls a bag of sand at a building, and he wants to blow up the building with it, then that is not objectively calculated to blow up the building. Even if the State can prove that he hurled the bag, and it was his intention 100 times to blow up the building, the act was not objectively calculated to achieve the objective of sabotage, and then it falls away. And now the hon. gentleman comes along with the argument that it deals with the subjective intention of the acts. The hon. gentleman might perhaps be able to argue the way he has argued here before other audiences, but he must forgive us if we rather listen to sense than nonsense in regard to a legal argument.

Then I wish to come to the essence of the matter, and we want to approach this matter in the spirit of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). I should like to say at the outset that I listened with pleasure to the basic approach in which the hon. member for South Coast made his submissions, where he felt that in South Africa at the present time there may be a rather exaggerated attitude of fear as regards sabotage, that there is too embittered an attitude on the matter, and that it is influenced by the occurrences in Africa. I assume that that is the correct approach. It is the duty of the Opposition to say: Is the Government not perhaps viewing the matter in an unbalanced light? But if that is the approach, can those hon. gentlemen then vote against the second reading? Surely we are now concerned with the principle of the matter. If the objection of those gentlemen is that these several provisions go too far here and there, then surely it is not the proper place to oppose it in debate and in voting at the second reading. Then the opportunity presents itself to hon. gentlemen to say at the second reading: Look, we are warning you, for we think the approach should be one of caution, but having said that, we shall vote for the second reading; but we are going to vet every clause in the Committee Stage. What have we had in this debate? Save for the speech of the hon. member for South Coast, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and the hon. the Leader of Zululand [laughter] the leader of the brilliant backbenchers, came along with Committee Stage arguments that are out of place here where we are discussing the broad outlines. Now I should like to put our view on this matter against the broad view of the hon. member for South Coast, and at the outset I should like to put very briefly (I do not want to repeat facts) the four premises I believe we should take into consideration. The first is Communism, and in that regard I do not wish to traverse the known field, but I should like to point out also that as early as 1922, at the second Communistic International it was laid down as definite international communist party policy that the aspirations to freedom of the so-called colonial peoples should be linked up with the communist movement, and this resolution was once again affirmed at the 1941 International, and this resolution was the incentive for the organization of the revolutions in South-East Asia which led in Vietnam to its initial success and which, I am afraid, will shortly score a further success in Laos. Now we know that international Communism applies that policy, and they will apply it in the whole of Africa and in South Africa too. That is why we are here dealing with two forces in Africa and in South Africa that cannot be confused. The one is the communistic action itself, and the second is the Bantu racism we have to contend with. I intentionally do not use the expression Bantu nationalism, for that may be misleading. But throughout Africa we have the evidence of the emergence of the Black racism, aimed against all that is White. In South Africa we are faced with the problem that sometimes Communism will be the organizing force, sometimes the Bantu racism will be the real driving force. But the authorities and the State that have the duty of guaranteeing and maintaining security, cannot at all times try to sort out which element is predominant. We know those two elements have unleashed a fight to the death against us here in South Africa, amongst others. That is my first premise, that we know that we are faced with this onslaught. And before I leave this first premise, I should just like to answer the hon. member for South Coast on the submission he made regarding Bantu nationalism. He tried to make the point that our Party is promoting Bantu nationalism. I should like to put the matter and reply to him thus: The force against us is the Pan-African movement, this Black racism, which is an ally of Communism. It is something quite different to the pure Bantu nationalism. As unsusceptible as the Britisher is who is proud of his Britishness, as unsusceptible to Communism as the Afrikaner is who is proud of his Afrikanership, so equally unsusceptible to Communism is the Zulu who is proud of his Zuluship and the Xhosa who is proud of his Xhosaship. Nationalism among the Bantu, in the pure sense of the term, might in the distant future produce conflicts, but at this stage the fostering of Bantu nationalism in South Africa is a protection against Communism. But this Black racism, which is also flourishing among our own Bantu, is an enemy together with Communism. That is then the first premise.

Then there is the second premise to which I want to refer: The cloud of evidence that the Pan-African movement locally and here on the continent of Africa has bound itself to the year 1963 to overthrow this State of ours. Mr. Speaker, I attach very little importance to their ability to do so, but the fact remains that those Pan-African leaders have verbally bound themselves to the date 1963. Even if they do not want to later on, they will be compelled to try to do something mad, or admit in the eyes of their own supporters that they are incapable and foolish. That is the second premise we have. The third premise is the attempts at sabotage that have already been committed here. In this connection I don’t want to repeat anything.

The fourth premise is the participants in the protest against this Bill. Who are the participants in the protest against this Bill? Who are the people who are walking up the street and trying to arrange processions and to create already related organizations, the Congress of Democrats. What are they? They are nothing but the conglomeration of the semi-communistic organizations. They have a joint congress and each one of them has a separate congress; and with them there are the Sash and the irresponsible university Nusas. The whole conglomerate however, comprises about 20,000 souls at the most in South Africa who are opposed to the existing order. They are like the leopard who with every spot on his body gives a new small leopard, and they are trying to pretend that they are a whole crowd whereas they actually are only one source of noise and sound. But the whole great noise of opposition to this Bill shows that, as the good old adage goes the pig that is stuck low down and squeals, that is the communist pig, and now I should like to tell the United Party: Does it suit them as official Opposition to climb into the pigsty? I think they should stay away there.

Having put these four premises, I now proceed and say in the light of that, that I am very keen to accept this Bill, for what is the contents of the Bill? The contents of the Bill is in the first place only to strengthen the provisions of the anti-Communism law of 1950, with three exceptions. The one exception is the right to prohibit gatherings, the second exception is the new rule of registration of newspapers, and the third is the sabotage clause itself. I am prepared to accept it because it is only a reinforcement of this anticommunist law. I am willing to accept those other two provisions on the gatherings and the Press and to defend them, for reasons I shall mention later, as well as this sabotage clause. While all of us agree that these are abridgments of the traditional democratic liberty, why are we prepared to accept it? Why do we gladly support the Government in regard to this Bill? In the first place because we are prepared to indicate that what we believe—not only this side of the House, but what we believe the whole healthy nation of South Africa are prepared to sacrifice in this anticommunist conflict and the battle for the continued existence of a separate White nation in South Africa. We are prepared to accept this curtailment of civil liberties, and we want to make it known to the world that we are prepared to make this sacrifice because we are prepared to hurl all forcible means against Communism for the preservation of our separate White existence. There is no price we are not prepared to pay and there is no instrument of force, whether it be legal sanctions, police action, or any other form of violence at our disposal, we will not hurl into the conflict to keep Communism out of this country and to secure the continued existence of the White nation in this country. That is the first reason why we support this Bill. We do not say that it is not an unusual interference in the normal civil rights, but we say that this interference, in view of the four premises I have mentioned, is justified. We gladly show it. We shall do much more, and we believe the supporters of those gentlemen opposite will do so with us.

In the second place we believe that we should not leave our opponents under any illusions. We know that Communism has always shown one strange peculiarity. Where it gets a hold, it grows rapidly. Where you do not allow it to take root, it remains weak for a long time. We have seen it even in Russia. That tragic surrender of Russia to Communism would not have occurred had it not been for a few historical coincidences, such as that the Bolshevistic Party together with the Manchuvics from about July 1917 had a share in the Government of Russia.. But once they got that foothold, they began to undermine and subvert and within a matter of four months the majority party who had permitted the communists to enter through the back door discovered that they were being ousted. Mr. Speaker, Communism must not be given a start. That is why there should be no misunderstanding in regard to this matter between us and the communists, between us and Pan-Africanism, between us and that combination of evils that sometimes are Pan-African evils and sometimes communist evils. This force that will mercilessly grab us by the throat with their bare hands if they were to get an opportunity to do so, that will take us by the throat, we shall take them by the throat if we see an opening to do so. We shall anticipate their attack with the state of mind of people who realize what is going on in the minds of their enemy. There is no instrument of force we shall fail to use to ward off the danger to our persons.

And now at this stage I have to deal with the argument: Why then this drastic measure when peace prevails in the country, as in fact it does at the present time? That is the very reason, Mr. Speaker. We want potential enemies to realize that they will not be able to make a start with their evil work, and where they do make a start we shall destroy them so quickly that there will indeed be permanent peace in our country notwithstanding the fact that this legislation will have to be applied from time to time to maintain permanent peace. Our Party is under no illusion that this measure and the anti-communistic legislation and cognate measures which hon. members say are sufficient, are the salutary means of securing the people and the State. We know that such preventive measures as these are tactical measures that are to be used temporarily in times of aggression against our national existence. We do not have the wrong idea that we are making everything safe by taking the necessary powers, or that we shall for ever be able to maintain our national life and secure it only by concentrating great power in our Executive Authority. We realize that the long term strategic objective should always still be to achieve a substantial victory over Communism by, on the one hand, as this Government is doing so assiduously, elevating the economic level of our whole nation and on the other hand again, by achieving peace with the Bantu of Southern Africa by our policy of separation of races. We know that eventually this will be our shield and our buckler, the growing prosperity, the implementation of our policy of separation of the races, so that the Bantu who will to-day in South Africa, probably be the most probable and most innocent and most abused instrument of the communist, shall no longer be in a position to be capbable of being abused. But we need time. It is a long road to achieve this high standard of prosperity, it is a long road to achieve the solution of the separation of races, and in the meantime these measures must be taken so that the people and the State may be quite safe.

Before I conclude I should like to point out some of the misleading statements in regard to the agitation against this Bill, that have been made in this debate either expressly or by implication by members opposite. The first point I wish to make is that this Bill is aimed at Communism. This Bill is not aimed at the ordinary citizen. And now the hon. member for Zululand (Mr. Cadman) for instance has referred to the prohibition of gatherings at any place. This is a new addition, it is one of the new principles, but these gatherings may be prohibited at any place or in any area during any period “if he is satisfied that any activities of any person or organization is furthering or may further the achievement of any of the objects of Communism in the Republic”. This mean allegation has been made that the provision may be abused in order to interfere with political meetings of opponents. No, Mr. Speaker, if such a wicked Minister of Justice were to arise in the future who will prohibit a proper political meeting of an Opposition party, he could be taken to court, and he will have to satisfy that Court that he bona fide believed that the gathering would further or could further the achievements of one of the objects of Communism in the Republic. He cannot just act arbitrarily. He is limited to the communistic object. Here the hon. member for Zululand referred to Clause 2, where the successor organization of the communist organization may be declared unlawful by the Minister without the prescribed long-winded investigation of the original communistic Act. But the Minister can only act if an organization continues directly or indirectly any of the activities of an organization that has already been declared unlawful. Mr. Speaker, the Minister is bound by the terms of the Bill. He cannot do as he likes. He can only take action against the proved communist. Is it fair to the country and people now, is it even fair to the professional and intellectual integrity a member such as that ought to show, to make such a suggestion that the Minister is hereby given an unbridled arbitrary discretion? No, Sir, the provisions of this Bill are aimed at the communists.

May I ask the hon. member a question? I wonder whether the hon. member is aware of the wording of the clause he is quoting, and which reads as follows:

Now I shall come to the provisions that are also new in regard to the registration of newspapers. It has been suggested by an hon. gentleman, such as the hon. member for Simonstown (Mr. Gay) that it may be abused to close down the English Press. The English Press is very naughty (gruwelik), but they are not yet communistic, and may God help that it will never come to that.

May I ask the hon. member why he has not replied to my question?

You have answered yourself. The hon. member has read the clause correctly, as I also quoted it. He confirms what I have said, I am now dealing with the deposit by newspapers. The new deposit is payable—an amount of R20,000, if the Minister has reason to believe that that newspaper will publish communistic doctrines or cognate doctrines. It is not an arbitrary power that is given to him, and the same point applies there.

Then a last aspect in regard to which misleading statements have been made, and that is in respect of the question of the onus of proof in regard to sabotage. Here I should like to put the matter quite clearly again. The Press in general has informed the world at large that the onus of proof shall not be on the State in a charge of sabotage, but on the accused. Here I should like to put it as clearly as possible that Clause 21 (1), leaves the whole onus of proof with the Crown, with the State, that the unlawful act has been committed, and only after the unlawful act has been proved, then the onus is on the accused to show that subjectively, if I may crystallize it, he did not have the intention to endanger the State through that act, which will complete the crime of sabotage? Is it an inequitable onus that a person should bear the onus of proof of his subjective intentions? Let us be realistic for a moment. How are we going to prove the subjective intentions of the thrower of bombs? The only practical manner in which you can prove his subjective intentions is when you can get hold of a letter from him, or the statement of an accomplice, or something of that nature. It is the most difficult thing on earth for the State to prove the subjective intention of a person, but it is the easiest thing on earth for a person to prove what his intention really was, and if his intention was not to endanger the State. If anyone were to throw a bomb at the hon. member for Germiston (District), not because he wanted to eliminate him from his caucus, but because he has a financial grievance against him, surely then it is an easy matter for him to explain to a Judge that he had a financial grievance, and that he did not contemplate a political act. It is a simple onus on a person to give evidence in regard to his subjective intentions.

May I ask the hon. member a question? Will the hon. member be kind enough to argue his point in regard to the objective and subjective approach in respect of the destruction of postal matter and the giving of counter-evidence under paragraph (e).

I think I should invite the hon. member to come and have a cup of coffee with me. Then we shall be able to argue these technicalities in a more interested but more limited audience. The basic point I have made is only this, that the onus on the accused is only an onus that concerns his subjective intent with the act, and it is an easy onus to discharge, and it is an unfair representation to the world and the general public that the whole onus on a charge of sabotage has been shifted to the accused.

I should like to conclude now by drawing attention to one aspect only. A considerable attack has been launched against the creation of this statutory crime of sabotage, and I should like to revert to a point I made a long time previously in this House, that treason in its old classic conception, had become absolete. A nation no longer fights for its continued existence in the normal course of things against a foreign enemy with whom treason or collusion may be committed as in the old days. At the present time a nation fights for its continued existence usually against this internal process of undermining and infiltration. Our ancient traditional common law conception of treason does not adequately cover the acts with which a nation and a state at the present may be endangered. If South Africa were to be at war with the United States of America, and one of us were to commit treason, and it would lead to the overthrow of our state and to us becoming subject to the United States of America, it would be a much less horrible fate than if we were to close our eyes to this Congress of Democrats type of agitator in South Africa, and were to allow those elements to overthrow us who lead and govern this State today, and to re-establish a State according to their Congress conception here. In such a case every value of living would be lost to us. The essential treason is no longer committed at the present time in accordance with the classic pattern of high treason. It is committed in accordance with the pattern that is now covered in this new crime of sabotage.

The time is long overdue for us to obtain a legal shield whereby we can protect our State, that we should have a statutory definition, admittedly perhaps not perfect as yet, with which we can bring to book these enemies and let them experience the violence of our State, and whereby we can bring home to them the seriousness of our resistance and the absoluteness of our determination, to ensure that what we have started will continue to exist. This Bill does not impair our support from any responsible person in this country or outside it. This Bill is only one more of the many guarantees the National Party is giving, and which is accepted by the generation that is here to-day, for the generations that will come after us, and for the foreigner who still has an interest in our country, that as long as destiny is in the hands of this Government and this party, for so long peace and order, prosperity and security will prevail in South Africa.

In my time some disturbing and appalling legislation has passed through this House: The Suppression of Communism Act itself (now been amended—or rather extended), the Group Areas Act, the Senate Act (now happily removed), the High Court of Parliament Act (which as the hon. Minister knows dressed certain of the gentlemen of the Other Place in judicial robes instead of in cap and bells), the extension of University Education Act (if we would follow that example in naming this Bill we would call it “The Extension of Civil Rights to all Peoples Act” and the Population Registration Act. We remember also the Church Clause; job reservation; removal of the Coloureds from the common roll, and the banishment of the Native Representatives from Parliament. Time is too limited to me to give a full catalogue of all of the undemocratic legislative actions of the Government—to say nothing of the proposed legislation which intends to choke and clog and place in a straight-jacket education in our country. There is one thing, however, that is common to all of the legislation passed by this Government. In every new Bill which comes before this House, in practically every Act with a political aim, Ministers tend to take unto themselves, in increasing measure, more and greater powers to rule by edict and decree, without reference to or any check by this so-called sovereign Parliament.

Order! What does the hon. member mean by “this so-called sovereign Parliament”?

I said “so-called sovereign Parliament”, by which I meant that this Parliament does not remain sovereign, as long as Ministers take powers to make laws on their own …

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “so-called”.

I withdraw the word “so-called”, but I can say that in my opinion if a Minister has taken the power to make laws by means of regulations which this Parliament cannot correct, then that Minister is doing something that derogates from the sovereignty of Parliament. In addition, I submitted that Ministers have shown contempt, consistent contempt for the judiciary, preceded by a vendetta against the courts of this country. We remember the remarks made by Cabinet Ministers about “the old men of Bloemfontein”, about “the paid servants” who must be brought to heel. We remember all of us only too vividly a one-time Cabinet Minister, who now graces the Other Place saying in a threatening way that his Government would pack the courts of law if necessary to gain their objectives. We remember an ex-Prime Minister of that party getting up and saying that they would remove the Coloureds from the common roll, “whether it is legal or not”. Sir, it seems to me that they endeavour, as this Minister is endeavouring in this Bill, to place themselves above and beyond the correction of the courts of law, to set themselves up and above the judgment of the judiciary. They set themselves up, or set their minions up, in courts of their own, administrative courts. In the courts they come to their own judgments in their own way. These private ministerial courts go uncorrected by any processes of law. They dispense their own particular brand of justice in secret session. I wonder if this House and the nation realizes that every time a Minister or his delegated representative sits in judgment upon a man whom he may consider is furthering the cause of Communism, he is holding a court: But he is holding a court where the Minister is the only Judge; where he hears no evidence; where there is no representation by his victim (“his victim”, I say I cannot merely call him “the accused”); where he alone decides what evidence should be heard and what should not be heard: where, Sir, the Judge himself is not even obliged to be reasonable. This, Sir, is the very negation of what we know to be justice. In this kind of court a Minister’s mere opinion, uncorrected, unchecked, can decide the life and the livelihood, the whole future of a fellow-citizen of our country. That, Sir, I say is grievously wrong, and in regard to this Bill one might well quote the words of Byron “your delegated cruelty surpasses the worst acts of your energetic masters …”.

At 10.25 p.m. the business under consideration was interrupted by Mr. Speaker in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), and the debate was adjourned until 23 May.