I move, as an unopposed motion—

The intention is not to sit in the afternoon. Furthermore it is also customary, towards the end of the Session, to sit in the mornings of the last two Saturdays, mainly to dispose of various stages of legislation. The Whips on the other side have been consulted.

I second.

Agreed to.

The Committee will now consider the taxation proposals on income tax, stamp duties and customs and excise duties.

The Committee proceeded to consider the proposals in regard to income tax (normal tax and non-resident shareholders’ tax).

I move—

1. (1) That, subject to the provisions of Act No. 58 of 1962, and of an Act to be passed during the present Session of Parliament amending that Act and subject to such definitions, conditions, exceptions and exemptions as may be provided in the said Acts, there shall be paid as from 1 July 1962, on all incomes received by or accrued to or in favour of or deemed to have been received by or to have accrued to or in favour of all persons from sources within or deemed to be within the Republic, a tax (to be called the normal tax), the rates of which for the year of assessment ending 13 June 1962 shall be—

1. (a) in respect of the taxable income (excluding so much as is derived from mining operations carried on in the Republic by any company but including so much as the Commissioner for Inland Revenue determines to be attributable to the inclusion in the gross income derived from mining in the Republic for gold of any amount referred to in paragraph (j) of the definition of “gross income” in Section 1 of Act No. 58 of 1962)—
   1. (i) in the case of all companies, for each rand of the taxable income, 30c;
   2. (ii) in the case of persons other than companies, as prescribed in the table below;

1. (b) in respect of so much of the taxable income as has been derived by any company from mining in the Republic for gold (but with the exclusion of so much of the taxable income as the Commissioner for Inland Revenue determines to be attributable to the inclusion in the gross income of any amount referred to in paragraph (j) of the definition of “gross income” in Section 1 of Act No. 58 of 1962), on each rand of the taxable income, a percentage determined in accordance with the formula:

   y = 60-360/x

   in which formula (and in the formulae set out in the proviso hereto) y represents such percentage and x the ratio expressed as a percentage which the taxable income so derived (with the said exclusion) bears to the income so derived (with the said exclusion): Provided that if the taxable income so derived (with the said exclusion) does not exceed R40,000, the rate of tax shall not exceed a percentage determined in accordance with the formula:

   y = 20(1-6/x)

   and if such taxable income exceeds R40,000, the rate of tax shall not exceed a percentage determined in accordance with a formula arrived at by increasing the number 20 in the formula y = 20 (1-6/x) by one for each completed amount of R2,500 by which the said taxable income exceeds R40,000;
2. (c) in respect of so much of the taxable income as has been derived by any company from mining in the Republic for diamonds, for each rand of the taxable income, 45c;
3. (d) in respect of so much of the taxable income as has been derived by any company from mining operations (other than mining for gold or diamonds) carried on by such company in the Republic, for each rand of the taxable income, 30c;
4. (e) in respect of so much of the taxable income of any company, the sole or principal business of which in the Republic is or has been mining for gold and the determination of the taxable income of which for the period assessed does not result in an assessed loss, as the Commissioner for Inland Revenue determines to be attributable to the inclusion in its gross income of any amount referred to in paragraph (j) of the definition of “gross income” in Section 1 of Act No. 58 of 1962, for each rand so determined to be attributable to the inclusion of any such amount, the amount by which the average rate of normal tax exceeds 25c: Provided that for the purposes of this sub-paragraph, the average rate of normal tax shall be determined by dividing the total normal tax (excluding the tax determined in accordance with this sub-paragraph for the period assessed) paid by the company in respect of its aggregate taxable income from gold mining for the period from 1 July 1916 to the end of the period assessed, by the number of rand contained in the said aggregate taxable income;
5. (2) That the rates fixed by paragraph (1) shall be the rates fixed in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (2) of Section 5 of Act No. 58 of 1962: Provided that one-sixth of any amount of tax determined in accordance with item (i) of sub-paragraph (a) of paragraph 1 shall accrue for the benefit of the provincial revenue funds of the four provinces in such proportions as may be determined by the State President by proclamation in the Gazette and shall in the said proportions be paid into the said provincial revenue funds in accordance with the laws relating to the collection, banking and custody of provincial revenues as though it were a tax imposed by the provincial councils of the said provinces on the incomes of companies;
6. (3) That, for the purposes of the normal tax referred to in paragraph (1), any person who is not ordinarily resident in the Republic or any company which is not registered, managed or controlled in the Republic shall from income derived by virtue of the use in the Republic of or the grant of permission to use in the Republic, or the imparting of or the undertaking to impart any knowledge directly or indirectly connected with the use in the Republic of any motion picture film or any sound recording or advertising matter used or intended to be used in connection with such film, be deemed to have derived a taxable income equal to 30 per cent of such income;
7. (4) That, for the purposes of the normal tax referred to in paragraph (1), an amount shall be deemed to have been derived by any person from a source within the Republic if it has been received by or has accrued to or in favour of such person by virtue of any service rendered or work or labour done by such person outside the Republic, during any temporary absence of such person from the Republic, if such a person is ordinarily resident in the Republic and such service is rendered or such work or labour is done for on behalf of any employer by whom such person is employed in the Republic;
8. (5) That, for the purposes of the normal tax referred to in paragraph (1)—
   1. (a) any interest which has been received by or has accrued to any person in respect of any loan to or deposit in any building society registered under the Building Societies Act, 1934 (Act No. 62 of 1934), or any dividend or share of profits distributed by any such society which has been received by or has accrued to any person, shall be deemed to have been derived from a source within the Republic; and
   2. (b) any interest which has been received by or has accrued to any person (other than a company) who is ordinarily resident in the Republic, or which has been received by or has accrued to any company which is registered, managed or controlled in the Republic, in respect of any loan to or deposit in any banking institution registered under the Banking Act, 1942 (Act No. 38 of 1942, or any similar institution, whether or not registered, managed or controlled in the Republic shall be deemed to have been derived from a source within the Republic;
9. (6) That, for the purposes of the normal tax referred to in paragraph (1), the amount to be deducted from income in the form of dividends in terms of Section 19 of Act No. 58 of 1962, shall be determined without taking into account any “assessed loss” as defined in sub-section (2) of Section 20 of that Act;
10. (7) That, for the purposes of the normal tax referred to in paragraph (1)—
    1. (a) the income of any married woman who is separated from her husband under a written agreement entered in to after 21 March 1962 shall be deemed to be the income of her husband;
    2. (b) the taxable income of any person who is divorced or judicially separated in consequence of proceedings instituted after that date shall not be reduced by any amount payable by him by way of alimony, allowance or maintenance payable in respect of his spouse, former spouse or any children;
    3. (c) any person who is divorced or judicially separated in consequence of proceedings instituted after that date shall if he remains so divorced or judicially separated during the entire period for which any assessment is made, be regarded as a person other than a married person; and
    4. (d) an amount shall be deemed to have accrued to any person from a source within the Republic if such person has been divorced or judicially separated in consequence of proceedings instituted not later than that date or if such person has been separated under a written agreement entered into not later than that date and that amount has been received by or has accrued to or in favour of such person by virtue of the order of divorce or judicial separation, or written agreement in question and the taxable income of such person’s spouse or former spouse has been reduced by such amount.
11. (8) That, subject to the provisions of Act No. 58 of 1962 and of an Act to be passed during the present Session of Parliament amending that Act and subject to such definitions, conditions, exceptions and exemptions as may be provided in the said Acts, the normal tax and non-resident shareholder’s tax payable in terms of Act No. 58 of 1962 in respect of dividends shall be payable in respect of so much of the nominal value of any bonus shares awarded on or after 1 July 1962 to shareholders as part of the equity share capital of a company by a company which is recognized as a public company in terms of Section 38 of Act No. 58 of 1962, and which during the period of 10 years ending the day before the date of such award has made any partial reduction of its paid-up share capital involving a distribution to shareholders of cash or other assets, as is equal to the sum of the amounts which in the opinion of the Commissioner for Inland Revenue were available for distribution to shareholders on each and every date on which the company made a partial reduction of its paid-up share capital during the said period, less the sum of so much of the nominal values of all bonus shares awarded by such company during that period (excluding any portion of that period occurring prior to 1 July 1957) as constituted dividends for the purposes of the said Acts and Act No. 31 of 1941, as amended: Provided that for the purposes of this proposal the amount available for distribution on any date on which the company made a partial reduction of its paid-up share capital, shall if that amount exceeds the nominal amount of such reduction, be deemed to be an amount equal to such nominal amount.

The hon. the Minister first published his proposals on 21 March, and they were published simultaneously with his Budget statement. The Minister then indicated that he had a balanced budget. He indicated that his revenue balanced his expenditure, and he congratulated himself on that ideal state. Sir, it is good budgeting to balance revenue with expenditure, but since 21 March he has had further information. On 18 April the Minister indicated to us that, instead of a balanced Budget, he would have a surplus of some R11,000,000. When making his Budget statement, he indicated that he was surrendering revenue by forgoing the 10 per cent discount on taxation, and in that Budget statement he indicated that that would amount to a surrender of revenue to the extent of R10.2 million. The Minister, having congratulated himself on his balanced Budget, and now finding himself in the position of having a surplus of R11,000,000, we surely have a very good case for asking for the R10.2 million to be given back to the taxpayers again. I therefore move—

The Minister’s proposals are to use this R11,000,000 surplus for the Defence Account. We feel that that amount could more appropriately be put in the hands of the taxpayers, because we feel that the taxpayers can make better use of it than the Minister of Defence. We will discuss that matter later on when we come to the Defence Vote, but in the meantime we suggest that it is advisable and necessary to put that 10 per cent in the hands of the individual taxpayer. The Minister may ask why we are not giving relief to companies as well, but to give relief to companies would involve a further surrender of tax, and would more than eat up the R11,000,000 surplus. Therefore, we suggest that we are being quite consistent in asking for the surrender by the Minister of this R10.2 million, because it would still leave him a surplus of approximately R800,000. We suggest that there is no case for budgeting for such a big surplus in these times; that the public is justified in asking that the ordinary individual taxpayer should be given this concession. I, therefore, move this amendment, which, I think, is reasonable, and one which is required and demanded by the ordinary taxpayer.

I would like to support my hon. colleague, but, as I intend to move another amendment at the end of my speech, I will confine my remarks to Clause 7 of the taxation proposals. Under the existing Act, if a taxpayer is separated by a judicial order or a written agreement or is divorced, then, firstly, alimony is a deduction from his income; secondly, it is taxable in the hands of the recipient, and, thirdly, the spouse responsible for the maintenance of the children is entitled to the relative rebate, and is taxed as a married person; the other party pays as an unmarried person. This position has held for many, many years. Under the new proposal this eminently sane arrangement is going to be altered, and it is suggested that it should be altered as follows: Firstly, written agreement of separation entered into after 21 March 1962 will not be recognized for income tax purposes; the wife’s income will continue to be taxed as if it is her husband’s, and he will be liable for tax on the joint income. It seems to have been overlooked here that many people do not divorce because of their religious beliefs, and that many of these people, in order to end an intolerable situation, enter into written agreements, which have always been recognized in the past, and they are taxed on the basis that I have mentioned. These proposals are going to penalize those people very considerably, but extraordinarily enough, only if they enter into this agreement after a certain date, 21 April 1962. The next result of these proposals is that the position will be as follows, in the case of divorces and judicial separations resulting from proceedings instituted after 21 March 1962. Although the phrase “proceedings instituted” is used, there seems to be some legal difficulty in interpreting it as to how you can prove when proceedings were instituted in some of these matters. Amounts payable as alimony by a husband to a wife will not be deductable from his income, nor will it be taxed in her hands, and, for some unknown reason, they will each be assessed as single people until re-marriage, and will be allowed the relative children’s rebate. There is one thing that does not seem to be quite clear, and I hope the Minister will clarify it. Will each one be entitled to the children’s rebate?

Now I want to give some examples of what the proposals will mean, and I quote them from the Financial Mail of 5 April 1962, from an article written by J. Lavine, the Financial Mail tax consultant who is very well known in this sphere. He says—

That is the day before the prescribed date—

1. (1) Separation by written agreement: Husband’s income R10,000, wife’s R2,000 from South African rents. Wife has taken two children to live in Switzerland and husband pays her R2,000 per annum for their maintenance.
   1. (a) Husband’s tax on R8,000 (unmarried rate) …… R1,329 Wife’s tax on R4,000 (married rate and child rebate) …………… R184

      That gives a total of R1,514. Under the new proposals if the agreement is entered into the day after the prescribed date the position will be as follows—

   2. (b) Husband’s tax on R12,000 (unmarried rate and child rebate) ……… R2,801 Wife’s tax …………… Nil

   There is a difference of approximately R1,300, so his tax is nearly doubled. Then the writer of this article deals with cases of divorce, and he takes the same cricumstances as under 1 above—

   1. (a) Husband’s tax on R8,000 (unmarried rate) …… R1,329 Ex-wife’s tax on R4,000 (married rate and child rebate) …………… R184

      A total of R1,513—

   2. (b)Husband’s tax on R10,000 (unmarried rate) …… R2,049 Ex-wife’s tax on R2,000 (unmarried rate and child rebate) ……… R57

   A total of R2,106, which again represents a very big penalty. The third example given is the same as number 2 above, but on 1 July 1962 the husband re-marries, the new wife having an income of R4,000 per annum—

   1. (a) Husband’s tax on R12,000 (married rate) ……… R2,680 Ex—wife’s tax on R4,000 (married rate and child rebate) …………… R184
   2. (b) Husband’s tax on R14,000 (married rate) ……… R3,693

   That is the tax on the combination of his own income and that of his new wife—

The note which the writer has here under

1. (3) (b) is—

These figures given here are not excessive. There are many people with incomes like that. They are good examples of how this proposed amendment does affect people in a manner that I think is entirely unwarranted. Sir, I am not pleading for easy divorce. Divorce to me is a sorrowful thing, but I do suggest that although in this country in the opinion of a good many of us, it is far too easy to obtain divorce, this use of income tax to penalize people is the use of, I suggest, the wrong weapon. The only possible argument in favour of these new proposals is that they are to catch out people who deliberately divorce and then go on living in sin simply to avoid paying taxes. We have all heard stories about instances of this, but I do not think many of our people would descend to that sort of thing. The facts that are against the proposals are, firstly, that many people’s religious feelings will now bring them, quite unjustly, great financial penalties; secondly, there can be no possible reason for deciding that if a man is divorced after 21 April 1962, he should be very, very heavily penalized financially as compared with the man who was divorced before that date. The next thing against it is this: Why should a widow or widower be taxed at the married rate, as is the position at present, and be given this advantage over the innocent party in a divorce? Surely the one maintaining the children, if he or she is a divorcee, is in no different position from the widow or widower. I believe that the results of these proposals, firstly, will be socially undesirable. There are bound to be thoughts directed towards cutting down the amount of alimony by taking into account the amount of tax which is going to be brought to account. There was a recent case in the United Kingdom relating to damage, in which the Judges held that tax was to be considered as a factor in calculating the damages to be awarded. Sir, I do not think the Minister’s advisers have gone into these proposals very thoroughly. When they found on their first proposals reinterest relating to deposits made in foreign banks were going to affect the business of South African banks doing business outside the Republic, the proposals were quickly amended to ease the position as far as these local banks are concerned, and I do hope that these provisions in regard to divorces are going to be deleted. They are equally unfair and should be deleted. There is nothing to be said for them, in my opinion, and I therefore move as a further amendment—

I would like to support the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) in his amendment to delete Clause 7. If we look at Clause 7 (a), a very interesting position may arise, for in terms of a written agreement between two people whereby they are separated, the income of the wife is to be treated as the income of the husband. Let us take the case of a fortunate or unfortunate husband who has an income of, say, R4,000 per annum and he has a wife; I take extremes because one can only illustrate by extremes; he has a wife with an income of R20,000 to R30,000 per annum. This poor unfortunate gentleman is then going to be in the position that although the wife retains here income, he has to pay the tax on her income which will be more than his own income. That is what the position will be. Perhaps the Minister will be good enough to look at that clause again in the light of such a set of circumstances.

In regard to (b), I do not think it is quite clear—perhaps the Minister could clarify the position—what the position will be of people who are separated by a judicial order and who then decide that they want to be divorced. I think there is a case where it was decided that where a judicial order is eventually changed to an order of divorce, the date of divorce is the effective date. If that is so, you would get the situation that two people who may have been judicially separated for five, ten or 15 years and then decide to get divorced, will have a complete change in their financial arrangement; in other words, in terms of the judicial separation entered into before 21 March, any payment made by the husband to the wife is taxed in the wife’s hands; but should they then decide to get divorced the amount paid by the husband to the wife is no longer taxable in her hands and the whole position changes. But I think most harm can be done through subsection (c), which deals with the question of a divorced person being treated other than a married person, particularly in the case cited by the hon. member for Benoni, i.e. in the case of a divorcee re—marrying. Surely it is not the intention of the hon. the Minister that a person who re—marries should be responsible for the tax on his own income, his new wife’s income and his ex—wife’s income. Surely that cannot possibly be the position. At least on his remarriage he has re—established his status as a married man, and therefore the amount paid by him to his previous wife should be deducted. Even if it is not deducted, surely her income must be deducted. In either case it would seem to me that the alimony should be deducted.

I want to refer back to Clause 5 (b). I find this clause objectionable. To my mind it attacks the very basis of our principles of taxation in this country. Ingram in his “Law of Income—tax in South Africa” at page 64 says this—

There have been a number of cases where items which are not basically “source” within the Union have been defined or deemed to be within the Union, and many of them are completely understandable. There is the question of contracts made by a person within the Union for the sale of goods outside the Union, the use in the Union of patents, designs, etc., the earnings of aircraft, ships and so on and so forth, and there is a certain amount of logic in these inclusions. But as I understand the basic purpose of Clause 5 (b), it is to include in the income of a South African resident, interest received from moneys deposited in banks in South West Africa which at the present moment is non—taxable in the hands of recipients in the Union. It seems to me that if that is the basic reason the hon. the Minister set out to catch a mouse and found himself with an elephant. Because what he is doing here is to tax the interest on every single amount of money in any banks or similar institutions anywhere in the world, and it is the introduction of the phrase “any similar institution” that has widened the field of interest taxation. The same thing happened in regard to dividends. We know that the hon. the Minister made dividends taxable in the hands of a person in the Union from all over the world because he was trying to bring within his net those people who were forming companies in Rhodesia, sending their income to Rhodesia and then getting their dividend ex Rhodesia. But the result of those taxation proposals is that everybody who has legitimate investments by way of shares overseas now pays tax on those dividends, and the same thing is going to happen here. If one has money invested in the United Kingdom in a bank, or in the United States in a bank, he will now pay tax on the interest. I know the hon. the Minister may turn round and say, “You should not have the money there.” He is quite right, of course. In terms of the financial regulations we all have to bring our money back. But there is a principle involved here, and once you write something into the Income Tax Act, it is going to be very difficult to take it out again. Ministers of Finance do not easily give up methods of taxation. I am sure the hon. the Minister will agree that the day is going to come, if not shortly then in the near future, with the increasing stability of our foreign exchange reserves and the increase in their strength, that he is going to relax currency restrictions, so in the foreseeable future we may be able to have investments in other countries. It seems to me very wide to make this provision applicable to the whole world in order to catch a few people who are depositing their money in South West Africa, and I hope the hon. the Minister will reconsider the breadth of this particular clause.

I want to support the amendment which has been moved by the hon. member for Benoni. I want to point out to the Minister of Finance that unwittingly, the clause completely ignores the situation that exists in Natal. There are two situations that exist peculiarly in Natal. The one is the question of when proceedings may be instituted for divorce, and secondly the effect in Natal of the case of Johnstone v. Commissioner of Inland Revenue, which the hon. the Minister will know about, an Appellate Division decision reported in 1960, Volume 4 of the South African Law Reports. Sir, in Natal you may not institute proceedings for divorce on the usual ground of malicious desertion until a period of 18 months has expired. That means that everybody in Natal will be adversely affected by this proposal, whereas anyone else in South Africa in respect of whom a cause of action arose for divorce on the ground of malicious desertion, would for 18 months have an advantage over all the people in Natal. I am sure that the situation that has arisen is not intended. But as the clause now stands, someone in Natal who 18 months before 21 March 1962, had a cause of action for a divorce or would have had a cause of action for a divorce on the ground of malicious desertion, anywhere else in the Union, is unable to institute an action for 18 months in Natal. If the same thing happened in Cape Town or Johannesburg or anywhere else in the Republic, I think within three weeks one could have the case before the court and one could ge a Court Order. In Natal it is not possible by law to institute proceedings for divorce on the ground of malicious desertion until a period of 18 months after the desertion took place has expired. The consequence of this is that you find, as you do to—day, many people living apart who have an arrangement relating to their maintenance under a written agreement, an agreement which is of force and effect, an agreement of which the Commissioner of Inland Revenue takes cognizance and in respect of which deductions are allowed by him in respect of the income tax of that person. The decision in Johnstone’s case amounts to this, that if you have a subsequent Court Order—and you must get a Court Order if you get divorced otherwise the basis for the obligation would disappear—the effect of Johnstone’s decision is that the Court Order supersedes the agreement made by the parties, even if it was an agreement which in fact was clothed with the sanction of an Order of Court. If this happened, everyone in Natal to—day who is waiting for the 18 months to expire, who has an agreement either backed by an Order of Court or an ordinary written agreement, after getting their divorce after 18 months will be without the protection which they now have under the law, whereas everyone else in South Africa would be able to avail themselves of that protection.

When is alimony decided? Is it not when the Order of Court is made? Alimony is only effective when there is an Order of Court.

Yes, when there is an Order of Court. An agreement to pay alimony pendente lite, not necessarily an agreement of separation, is the normal thing. You cannot have an agreement for separation if you are in fact going to use the separation as part of your cause of action for divorce. So far as is possible, the courts do not want to make such arrangements Orders of Court, they encourage the litigants to make such arrangements outside the court. I think the Minister will see my point so far as Natal is concerned. In the Cape you could get your Court Order within a month; in Natal you just have to wait 18 months. That is the first point. The second point is that the effect of Johnstone’s judgment is that it is necessary that the agreement be made an Order of Court if the decree of divorce or separation order is granted to the spouse to enable that party to deduct the amount from his taxable income. I have several cases in my constituency of people who are very concerned about the situation. They are waiting for the 18 months to expire, and in several instances, as has been pointed out, these people dare not get divorced now because they will only be able to institute proceedings after 21 March 1962. In the result they will be neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. So married people who are separated from each other with good cause for divorce will not be able to afford to get that divorce. This is a situation which I think is most undesirable and most unfair upon all those persons in Natal. These constitute a considerable number. I do not have exact figures but the figure for divorces on the grounds of malicious desertion for last year ran into several hundred. All these are going to be placed in this impossible position. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider revising this clause not only to meet these people in Natal I have referred to, but also those referred to by the hon. member for Parktown, i.e. persons who at the moment have a judicial separation order and subsequently get their divorce, perhaps on the grounds of adultery which was committed during the duration of the separation order. These, too, will, in terms of the decision in Johnstone’s case, fall outside the protection of the law because the subsequent agreement will then be an agreement concluded after 31 March 1962.

I should like to refer to a matter to which no reference has as yet been made, namely the provision of Clause 5 (a) of the proposals reading as follows—

I think it is common cause that this provision was inserted because of certain decisions of the South African courts to the effect that moneys invested in a South African building society trading in South West Africa was not taxable under our Income Tax Acts as these Acts stand at the present time. The circumstances attached to these decisions I do not think I need go into. In any event, the Minister has announced that he is putting a stop to this, because there are South African residents who have not paid taxation in respect of interests on deposits held in a South West Africa branch of a South African building society. With this decision I am not quarrelling. It appears to me, however, that the clause as it stands has also another effect. The Minister is now stipulating that such interest shall be deemed to have been derived from a source within the Republic. As I read the clause, it means that all money invested in South West Africa will be deemed to have been derived from a source within the Republic. That covers the case of a resident within the Republic, but also the case of a person who is resident in South West Africa or whose business is in South West Africa.…

In the Act an exemption will be made in respect of a person resident in South West Africa.

But is the Minister not prepared to make the change here so as to put the matter beyond question? It is quite clear from what the hon. the Minister has said that he has no intention of taxing such a case. The matter can quite easily be dealt with by adding to the end of the clause words to this effect—

If the Minister is prepared to indicate that he is prepared to accept an amendment of this nature, I shall go into the wording thereof, frame it and hand it in.

I shall deal with the various points, not in the order in which they have been raised, but in the order in which they fit into the taxation proposals. The hon. member for Pinetown moved to restore the 10 per cent discount. He said that now that I have been proved to be at fault in that I thought I would have a balanced Budget, it would be logical to restore that which I have taken away. I should like to point out, however, that the hon. member is slightly at fault. It is the Budget for the coming year, i.e. 1962—3, which will be a balanced Budget with no surplus or deficit. As far as the Budget for 1961—2 is concerned, however, there was a surplus of R5,000,000. This surplus will be carried over to the Revenue Account for 1962—3. If that is done, we will have a balanced account for the new year. I also indicated subsequently that there would be a surplus, not of R5,000,000, but of R16,000,000. The hon. member now suggests that the extra R11,000,000 transferred to the 1962—3 account must be used in order to restore the 10 per cent discount in respect of income tax.

That amount is a surplus on the 1961—2 account, is it not?

Yes. That amount is, in any event, free. The point is that we could have transferred the whole amount to the 1962—3 account. We are not doing so, however, as we are transferring only R5,000,000. The balance, i.e. R11,000,000, will be transferred to the Defence Special Equipment Account. It will, consequently, not be surplus on the 1962—3 account, because we are not transferring the amount to the coming year. The hon. member suggests that we should thus transfer it, so that we can have a surplus during that year. The latest estimate of the surplus for the year 1961—2 is R15,000,000. I should point out, however, that this is not yet the final figure. The amount of R10,000,000 which this surplus is at present more than the R5,000,000 surplus I announced in my Budget speech, is due to a reduction in expenditure and substantial rise in revenue, particularly inland revenue, above the figure previously estimated. The hon. member for Pinetown, when making his proposal, lost sight of the fact that there is already a lien on this R10,000,000 surplus. All will not be transferred to the Defence Special Equipment Account, however. In the supplementary estimates, which I hope to Table soon, the hon. member will find that provision has to be made for the following items, i.e. items for which no provision was made in the main estimates, nor in my Budget calculations—

This will make an incursion of R5.7 million on the surplus of R10,000,000. The estimated expenditure on the Treasury Vote has also been reduced by R1,000,000. This was made possible by an unexpected, but nevertheless welcome, reduction in the requirements of the Decimalization Board. The additional amount which is required to be financed from any surplus over and above the R5,000,000 is, therefore, R4.7 million. The restoration of the discount of 10 per cent on personal tax payments will result in an estimated revenue loss of R10.2 million. This will exceed the additional funds available by R4.9 million.

What about the additional surplus?

That is taken into account in arriving at that figure. The position is that from the additional R10,000,000 surplus must be subtracted R4.7 million to meet the additional estimates. That leaves R5.3 million. The hon. member for Pinetown, however, wants me to pay out R10.2 million. If that is done, there will be a deficit of R4.9 million. As I have said before, it is not advisable to budget for a deficit.

Are you prepared to restore 5 per cent of the 10 per cent discount?

No, and I am not prepared to bargain about it at all! I will give my reasons for that. As I said, it is not advisable to budget for a deficit. There are very clear signs that there is a revival of economic activity in the offing and a budgeting for a substantial deficit on the current account might increase the inflationary pressures and this we do not want. Hon. members I notice laugh. I do not know whether they would like to see inflationary pressures! The point, however, is that if we were to restore the 10 per cent discount, as the hon. member has suggested, it would also mean that the taxation would be concentrated on a limited range of indirect taxes instead of being spread over both direct and indirect taxation as proposed by me in my Budget speech—which was fairly divided between direct and indirect taxation. Direct taxes would be limited to 3 per cent for companies tax which would then be the only direct taxation, and would amount to about R4,000,000 only. The rest would then be indirect taxation. I purposely framed the taxation proposals in such a way as to have more or less two—fifths from direct and three—fifths from indirect taxation. I did so purposely. There was also a lot of praise for this distribution of the tax burden. If I were to accede to this proposal, however, I would do away with that argument entirely and would load the dice in favour of indirect taxation, because whereas the direct taxation would be reduced to R4,000,000 the indirect taxation would remain at R21,000,000.

Another reason why I do not consider it advisable to reduce taxation under these circumstances, is on account of a possible introduction of a system of pay—as—you—earn tax collection. If this system is introduced resulting in the proposed tax holiday, it is obvious that taxpayers will cease to buy tax redemption certificates. Many taxpayers have accumulated a reserve of such certificates, i.e. over and above the minimum which they require for any particular tax year. Consequently, there has always been a carry forward of these certificates from year to year. Last year, for instance, the carry over amounted to R9,000,000. Now, this carry over will fall away if a system of pay—as—you—earn is introduced and taxpayers after having met their tax commitments for the 1961—2 tax year, will cease to take out any further certificates.

Why? Won’t it be foolish of them to do so?

Not if a system of pay—as—you—earn is introduced, because the system of buying tax redemption certificates will then be done away with altogether. But then there will be an amount in the kitty, so to speak, which will then be put into circulation at the expense of the Loan Account. There will then be an amount which will be let loose for spending. It is, in actual fact, the equivalent of a tax reduction of R9,000,000. It is my intention to transfer to the Defence Special Equipment Account that portion of the surplus which exceeds R5,000,000. In determining what amount will be thus transferred, one has to keep in mind that there might still come other calls on such portion which would have to be met. As far as the R5,000,000 is concerned, I already indicated that it will be transferred to the Revenue Account for the year 1962—3. The idea, in other words, still is to plan neither for a surplus nor for a deficit on the Revenue Account. On present estimates, the amount to be transferred to the Defence Special Equipment Account is R5.3 million but as the surplus for 1961—2 is not yet final, any transfer will be left in abeyance for the present and will be voted in the additional estimates next year. The final figures in this respect will then be available.

The next point with which I should like to deal has been raised by the hon. member for Germiston (District) in regard to Clause 5 (a) dealing with payments made by South African building societies to citizens of the Republic in respect of deposits they make in branches of a South African building society in South West Africa and elsewhere. I have already indicated that it is not proposed that the income of a resident of South West Africa should be regarded as having its source within the Republic. An exemption will be made in that respect in the proper place. I understand this is not the correct place to do that. Provision will, however, be made to relieve from Republican tax any payments made by a building society to a person, other than a company, ordinarily resident in South West Africa, or to a company which is managed or controlled in South West Africa, if such payments are derived from a loan or deposit in the society or from a share in the society and such loan, or deposit or subscription for such share was made through any branch or agency of the society concerned in the territory. That, I think, meets the point of the hon. member for Germiston (District).

You mentioned two exemptions. Which is the second one?

The second one is in Clause 5 (b) which has to do with banking. We cannot very well tax dividends from building societies but not on banks as well. Consequently, it has been decided to do that as well especially because we have found that this constitutes a fruitful method of tax avoidance. It is proposed now to close that loophole by stipulating that if there is a deposit in a bank outside the Republic, then the interest on such deposit shall be deemed to come from a source within the Republic. In this connection, it must be taken into account that there are double taxation agreements for instance with the Federation, South West Africa, the United Kingdom, the U.S.A., Canada and Sweden. Further agreements are still being negotiated. In terms of the already existing agreements, the arrangement is that the interest paid by any company that is taxable in the Republic and in South West Africa or the Federation, for instance, the Republic will not impose its tax if the company concerned is not managed or controlled in the Republic. Consequently, the Republic will only be entitled to tax interests paid by any branch of a bank which is managed by or controlled in the Republic, and South West Africa or the Federation or other country as the case might be, will not do so at the same time. It frequently happens, however, that neither country raises any tax. In cases where a bank is managed or controlled in both countries concerned—which does sometimes happen—only the country in which the interest is allowed as a deduction in the determination of taxable income will be entitled to tax such interest. If a bank is not managed or controlled in either country, but in another country—there are such banks in the Federation I understand—there is no provision for the avoidance of double income tax if both countries tax the interest. In such cases, however, South Africans will tend to transfer their deposits from such banks to banks managed or controlled in South Africa. They will do that in order to avoid payment of double taxation. In this field there has, as I have pointed out already, existed a loophole all along and it is our intention to close this loophole.

This matter was also referred to by the hon. member for Parktown. In this connection I wish to repeat what I have said already, namely that it is necessary to reach outside the Republic in order to counter all these attempts at tax avoidance. Hon. members will realize that it is very easy to transfer deposits from a branch of a bank in the Republic to a branch of that bank operating in the Federation for instance. All South African residents will, therefore, be liable for tax on interest and dividend payments received from banks outside the Republic unless such person is legitimately carrying on business outside the Republic. Here, therefore, there is a further exemption. In such event, therefore, such person will not be required to pay tax on money invested outside the Republic. Provision will also be made for this exemption in the Act itself.

This brings me to the point raised by the hon. member for Benoni and referred to also by the hon. member for Durban (North) and by the hon. member for Parktown. May I say at the outset that this is not a measure which is being introduced for the purpose of penalizing divorcees. That is not its object at all.

That is, however, a fact.

The present system is altogether wrong and offends against the basic principle of income tax, namely that only expenditure incurred in the production of income should be deducted. Alimony cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be interpreted as falling within that category. This has been the law for a long time although, as I said, it is entirely wrong. It is anomalous to have a provision like that in our Income Tax Act. To do away with it is part of the reform of our income tax system which I have initiated and which will be brought about in successive stages. As I said, it is contrary to the basic principle of our Income Tax Act to allow a provision of this nature to stand. The Income Tax Commission of 1953 recommended—and it is interesting to compare their recommendations with what we have here—in the first place, that alimony should not be deductible from the income of the payer. That is what we have here. Secondly, they recommended that alimony should not be taxed in the hands of the recipient. That is also what we have here. Thirdly, that divorced persons should be treated as unmarried—that is what we have here; and fourthly, that both the divorced persons should be entitled to a rebate in respect of a child of the marriage. If there is only one child both the parents are entitled to the statutory rebate in respect of that child. That was a recommendation by the 1953 Income Tax Commission. We have now added a further concession to that. We say that over and above this concession of allowing a rebate to each of the parents in respect of a child of the marriage, we will also allow a special additional rebate of R16 to the parent who mainly maintained that child during the tax year in question. The R16 is the difference between the primary rebate in respect of a married person and an unmarried person. The scale on which he will pay is the unmarried scale. The primary rebate which he will enjoy, if he has mainly maintained the child during the tax year in question will be the primary rebate granted to a married person. That is a single person plus the R16 which brings it up to the primary rebate allowed to a married person. We are now carrying out what was recommended, with a certain amendment which I think is a bigger concession. We are bringing into effect the recommendation of this Income Tax Commission of 1953 which, I suggest, is the right thing. We must remove this anomaly from our income tax system of allowing as a deduction anything which is not being strictly used in the production of income. That is contrary to the whole principle of income tax law. I just want to show hon. members what its effect may be. Under the present system up to half of the alimony paid may be paid by the State—when I say the State, I mean all the other taxpayers. If you have a taxpayer with a taxable income of, say, R30,000 paying an alimony of R6,000 to his wife, it is quite possible in those circumstances that R3,000 of that alimony, less, of course, what the recipient will pay in income tax will actually be paid by the State, by other taxpayers. In other words, the State, the other taxpayers, will be subsidizing divorce to that extent. The additional amount which the wife may get under this is an amount which we are paying and which should strictly be paid by her husband.

May I ask the Minister a question? If your argument is correct, why have you fixed a certain date?

I am coming to that. I am just showing what the effect of this may be. Let me answer the hon. member for Benoni (Mr. Ross) at once. When the alimony is decided upon by the two parties, it is decided in the light of the existing taxation position. It would be unfair to a husband and a wife who have agreed to a certain alimony before 21 March under the income set—up which was then in existence, to make a change now and to say: You will not be able to deduct it from your taxable income. The wife will then have to pay taxation on that alimony. The position of the divorced parties in regard to the alimony is different under this system from what is was under the former system. It is only fair that we should protect those agreements entered into before this date. Everybody will know in future what the law is and when they agree on the alimony to—day, they can agree to it in the light of the new taxation position in regard to divorced persons. That is why we have not made this provision retrospective.

I want to raise a second point in this connection. The hon. member for Benoni referred to a separation by written agreement after 21 March. The income of the husband and the wife will be massed, but the resultant tax will be divided between husband and wife. The husband will not have to pay the full tax on the joint income. He will pay an unmarried rate on his share, i.e. that part which he has contributed to the joint income. And the wife will pay a proportionate part on hers at the married rate. That also deals with the point raised by the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Emdin).

The hon. member for Parktown also referred to the question of separation followed by a divorce after 21 March. He says there may be a separation before 21 March followed by a divorce after 21 March. He wants to know what the position will be in that case. In that case the new provisions will apply because the divorce will be after 21 March. Even if the separation was before 21 March, the divorce—that is when the alimony is ordered—is after 21 March, and therefore the new provisions will apply.

I think the other point raised is that raised by the hon. member for Durban (North) (Mr. M. L. Mitchell). Firstly, let me say that an agreement pendente lite as to alimony is not recognized as a separation agreement. The parties remain married and are treated as such for income tax purposes. There is no change in respect of pendente lite. The alimony is not deducted on the one hand or taxed on the other hand. As far as the 18 months are concerned that must lapse before the divorce can be completed, the effective date is again the date of divorce. If that is after 21 March then before the order is made it is possible to provide for any change in the amount of alimony. Even if the separation was earlier, people can now reconsider their position in view of the new law if the order of divorce is granted after 21 March.

Does the hon. Minister agree that therefore the people in Natal are penalized as opposed to a person outside Natal because of the 18 months provision.

I do not think they are penalized. Because when they decide to divorce they will know what the position is and they can then decide on the alimony in the light of the new situation.

They will be after 21 March.

No, I do not think so. In any case I think if there is any penalizing, then surely it is up to Natal to get into step with the rest of South Africa. I think that would be a much better idea than to have the rest of the Republic get into step with Natal!

I just want to deal briefly with what the hon. the Minister has said. The question of the 18 months in the first place …

Order! I have allowed the hon. member to make his point but there is nothing in these proposals about 18 months. There is only one date and that is the date mentioned in Clause 7. For that reason I cannot allow the hon. member to continue with that point.

Mr. Chairman, may I just address you on this point? It refers to divorced and separated people. The question of a divorce and the circumstances in which you can get a divorce are different in Natal from what they are anywhere else.

It makes no difference what the grounds are. All that is important here is that the divorce must have taken place after 21 March 1962. I cannot allow the hon. member to continue on the lines on which he argued previously.

On a point of order, Sir, I should like to refer you to Rule 120 which reads “When this House is in Committee of ways and means, the details of the proposed method of raising funds shall be open to discussion …” I submit, with respect, Sir, although this point is not there, from the law of the land as it exists, the effect of the proposal is quite different as far as Natal is concerned from what it is in the case of the rest of the Republic. And I suggest that in view of Rule 120 and the circumstances, you might reconsider your ruling in respect of the hon. member’s right.

I have given this very careful thought and I am afraid the hon. member will have to abide by my ruling.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Hopewell put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—44: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Con-nan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Em-din, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Higgerty, J. W.; le Roux, G. S. P.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G.

O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Swart, H. G.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood. L.F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Noes—84: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G.P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Dönges, T. E.; Fouché, J. J. (Jr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; Loots, J. J.; Louw, E. H.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, M. D. C. de W.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, J. P.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Rens-burg, M. C. G. J.; van Wyk, H. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Question put: That paragraph (7), proposed to be omitted, stand part of the motion,

Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—86: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G.F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Bootha, L. J. C.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Dönges, T. E.; Fouché, J. J. (Jr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Kno-bel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; Loots, J. J.; Louw, E. H.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, A. I.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Maree, W. A.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, M. D. C. de W.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Serfontein, J. J.; Smit, H. H.; Steyn, J. Ft.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, G. P.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Rensburg, H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Niekerk, M. C.; van Rensberg, M. C. G. J.; van Wyk, H. J.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Waring, F. W.; Wentzel, J. J.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Noes—44: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H.

C.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E, L.; Gorshel, A.; Graaff, de V.; Henwood, B. H.; Higgerty, J. W.; le Roux, G. S. P.; Lewis, H.; Malan, E. G.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Swart, H. G.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Weiss, U. M.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. Ross negatived.

Original motion put and agreed to.

The Committee proceeded to consider the proposed stamp duties.

I move—

The Committee proceeded to consider the proposals in regard to customs and excise duties.

I move—

1. (1) the customs duties on the articles set forth hereunder, be increased as shown:

These duties are imposed or proposed for one of two reasons, either for revenue-producing purposes or for protection purposes. In regard to revenue, we shall have something to say later. In so far as protective duties are concerned, there is a point I would like to raise with the Minister. When it comes to putting on protective duties, the normal practice is for the Government to ask the Board of Trade to investigate the application for protection and to report to the Treasury as to whether the claim for protection is well founded or not. Here we have several duties that do not conform to that normal practice. There are several duties here that are being imposed, although the Board of Trade has either rejected the application, or else has not yet reported. I refer to tariff Item No. 61, dealing with blankets. That includes baby blankets and crib blankets, for which an application was made for increased duties and the Board of Trade turned it down, but the Government has granted the increase. There is also the case of sunshades and umbrellas. An application was made and the Board of Trade turned it down, but the protective duty is being imposed. There is a peculiar example in respect of candles. The candle trade applied for a duty of 25½ per cent, but before the Board of Trade had had time to report on the question at all the Minister granted a protection of 40 per cent, much more than they asked for. It is not surprising to learn that their application for protective duty has now been withdrawn by the candle trade. I think the Minister might explain why it is that in this case he has either ignored the recommendation of the Board of Trade, who after all had to investigate that application and presumably know more about it than the Minister, and why, when an application is made for 25½ per cent protection, before the thing is investigated 40 per cent protection is given. I should like to know whether the Minister can explain that.

But there is one proposed duty here which does not fall under the normal categories at all, as far as I can see, and that is Item 284, dealing with books. I think that the principle of taxing books or literature is a bad one and that there must be some overwhelming reason before the principle is introduced in our tariffs. Here we have a 5 cent duty imposed on soft-cover books. Why? It certainly is not for revenue purposes, because it will not produce substantial revenue. It certainly is not for protective purposes, because there is no book trade applying for protection in South Africa. One imagines, therefore, that the object of the duty is to keep out trash and undesirable books, and in fact the Minister said so in his Budget speech. Well, I submit that whilst the Treasury has a very onerous and important duty to perform, it is not the Treasury’s function either to look after the morals of the country or to control its literary tastes. The Minister has 17 colleagues and six or seven sub-colleagues. I do not know which of them is the proper person to take charge of the morals of the country. I have no doubt there will be a number of candidates, if called for, but it is not the Treasurys task to do this job. Apart from its not being the Treasury’s task to take into account the type of literature that comes into the country, I do not think that this particular step will achieve its object. Obviously the matter has not been very well thought out in the first place, because we have had a substitute clause put in. I know the Minister has had conversations with various interested parties and has done his best to meet the objections and the difficulties raised. The result is that we have a somewhat involved proposal here, and I cannot for the life of me see that if a person really wanted to import or read an undesirable book, a paperback, he is going to be deterred from reading it, because it will cost 5c more than it did before. And there will be a great deal of difficulty in collecting that 5c, in assessing it, and in sorting books out. But if you want to prevent people reading undesirable literature, the way to do it is through censorship or in terms of the Undesirable Publications Act. But putting a 5c duty on it will not deter people from reading that book if they want to. What will be the position? This 5c will have to be paid on all books falling in this category. Presumably when they come into the country they will still be submitted to the somewhat sketchy censorship system we have. What happens if a man imports a consignment of books and pays his duty and some are bad? Can he then claim a refund of duty on the books which have been admitted legally and assessed for customs duties, and then he finds that they are banned? Can he claim a refund from the customs? I think this proposal is a bad one in principle, because once you get the principle accepted on the statute book that the Government for any purpose at all can start taxing printed matter coming into the country, you do not know where it will end; and, secondly, I do not think it will work effectively to keep bad books out, and if bad books have to be kept out I do not think it is the function of the Treasury to do so. I therefore move—

Mr. Chairman, I would like to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson). I do not think there is any other example in any Western country which the Minister can produce where a tax has been imposed on literature or reading matter. It is clear, therefore, that the imposition of this tax would amount to a form of censorship which I think is to be abhorred. You see, Sir, the Minister has imposed this tax on certain inferences. If one examines his Budget speech, he said that he was reluctant to impose a duty on books, if only on paper-back fiction, but anyone acquainted with the enormous volume of trash which enters the country in this form to-day would be surprised to know that even in 1954 no less than 6,000,000 soft books were imported. Sir, I think it is quite clear from that statement that the Minister was attempting to draw the inference that literature which is cheaply sold and cheaply bound is cheap in quality. But in recent years published works of quality fiction in paperback form has increased enormously, and in the book trade alone it is estimated that within a period of five years no fiction will be published except in paper-back form. I think it is necessary graphically to illustrate to the House what is in fact going to be taxed, and what type of literature will be taxed. I have taken the trouble to obtain certain examples of the type of book which is now to be taxed, in paper-back form. I have a number of them in my hand. “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens; “D. H. Lawrence, The Man Who Died”; “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift; “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte; “The Fall of the House of Usher” and other Short Stories—all by famous authors. I have quite a collection here. It in fact means that everything, any book of any quality, will be taxed, and the tax represents quite a large percentage of the purchase price of the book to the public. There are certain reasons for the fact that it is estimated that in five years’ time most of the literature presently available to the public will be published in this form, and one of the reasons is the advancing rate of literacy in the world. Publishers look for increased markets through this increased rate of literacy, and the paper-back is the ideal vehicle for carrying the literature of the world to the world in the cheapest possible form.

The Minister has referred to this enormous volume of so-called trash because he infers that all paper-backs are trash. Where did the Minister get that information, and how did he fix upon the figure of 6,000,000? I do not know whether the Minister has studied the report on undesirable literature, but I find a remarkable association between the Minister’s statement and what is published in that report, but the information in that report is old and out-dated and it is based on completely false presumptions. It is dated 1954. The Minister says 6,000,000 such books were imported, but what are the facts? All the members of this House have the report of the Select Committee that sat on the Publications Bill and certain evidence was given by officials of the Minister’s own Department, and what were the facts revealed there in regard to the importation of paper-back fiction? I think that the Minister should note this, because this is evidence given by officials of his own Department to a Select Committee of this House. The question was put to a particular official as to what was the volume of this type of publication that entered the country and he was not able to give the exact volume of paper-back publications, but he did say this—

The maximum revenue that the Minister can expect from the imposition of this duty of 5c, because it would apply in the main to most of this type of publication, would be something like R120,000, so it cannot by any stretch of imagination be considered as a tax which is being imposed to yield additional revenue. The only other inference is that it is a tax which is being imposed as a means of restricting the acquisition by the lower income groups of certain types of publications. If that is so, is the Minister going to achieve his object? The question arose in this Select Committee what percentage of this volume of R2,500,000 imported annually into the country, constituted literature of an undesirable nature, which the Minister hopes will not be available to the public. On this point the evidence was perfectly clear, because this particular official of the Customs Department stated—

That is the evidence of the Minister’s Department. I think it creates a completely wrong impression for the Minister to make this statement that 6,000,000 of these books are trash and that therefore the duty would be a justifiable one if it is going to have the affect of prohibiting the entry of trash into this country, but in fact it is not going to have that effect.

Then there is another aspect of this proposed tax. It is undoubtedly a tax on the pleasures of the ordinary man, particularly the lower income groups. Good fiction at cheap prices is the cheapest form of entertainment for the people to-day, and the imposition of this tax will discourage the reading of better classes of literature by the lower income groups. It will also discourage the reading of matter which is of educational benefit, because the paperback offers elucidation of many things in the modern world to the man of limited education. Let me indicate to the Minister what I mean. I have here in my hand publications which will be subject to this tax, and the prices of which, in a considerable number of cases, will be increased by as much as 20 to 30 per cent to this particular class of reader. Here I have a publication called “A World without War; an inquiry into the basic factors which underlie possible roads to peace “Cultural Patterns and Technical Changes”, written in simple, straight-forward language for the man of limited education. Then I have a publication here called, “The Shape of To-morrow”, a discourse on future scientific development. And then you get a publication like “Civilization and Ethics” by Albert Schweizer, written in straightforward, plain language. I quote these examples because they indicate clearly that the imposition of this tax is going to deprive the man in the lower income groups of this type of reading matter. Then there is another aspect of this tax. A tax of 5c is in fact a heavy duty that is being imposed here. It may represent up to 40 per cent of the cost of popular paperbacks. Let me ask the hon. the Minister whether it is his intention to deprive the little schoolgirl of, for example, her little Home Magazine, which contains a story in serialized form about another schoolgirl? At the moment the position is that she can spend 2½c of her weekly shopping money to purchase one of these publications, but instead of paying 2½c she will now have to pay as much as 12½c for it as the result of the imposition of this duty. I have here, for example, a specimen of Schoolgirls’ Own Library, which has been published for years and years, and which contains stories such as, “The Local Hotel”, “The Adventures Amidst Floating Luxury”, which describes a schoolgirl’s holiday; “The Drowned Village; what secrets lay hidden under the Village?” I could give many examples of this nature. These are all publications upon which a duty of 5c has to be paid. But there is still a further aspect. This duty will have severe repercussions on the sale of good-quality paperbacks because booksellers will now have to face the possible further additional loss on unsold copies. Every importer of books to-day has to assess his potential market. He will now have to pay this duty on his direct importation, and he will therefore have to face increased losses. Instead of books of good quality standing for longer periods on a bookseller’s shelves, the tendency will now be for the bookseller to import only those publications which he considers can be reasonably and very quickly sold, and the variety and titles of good-quality fiction that will be available to the general reading public will obviously be reduced. It can be said that this duty will put literature beyond the reach of certain income groups. Obviously this is also going to have repercussions in respect of social problems, particularly in the case of the younger generation, because if publications of this kind are placed beyond the reach of youngsters, they will seek their pleasures elsewhere in other undesirable forms. Then there is the other broad aspect of the possible repercussions of this duty on our non-White community, whose reading matter consists largely of paperbacks. Sir, we are trying to give our Coloureds and our Bantu at least a Std. 6 education and we are spending millions of pounds to achieve that end. These people belong to the lower income groups and it is necessary that they should have at their disposal good-quality books, both classical and fiction, printed in paperback from, but this duty will now deny books of that kind to these groups of persons. I have tried to show, Sir, that the Minister’s basic objective, and that is to impose a duty as a from of censorship in order to restrict the accessibility of certain types of literature to the broad masses of the public, is not going to succeed; on the contrary, the imposition of this duty is going to have very harmful results as far as the general standard of literacy is concerned and from the point of view of an appreciation of the modern world by the broad masses of the public. Sir, there is effective machinery to-day to control undesirable literature. It has been pointed out that the undesirable literature which is being imported into our country to-day represents a very minute percentage of the overall importation of publications, and I submit to the Minister with respect that this tax will not achieve his object.

I rise at this early stage, because having listened to what the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has said, I think it is necessary that I should disabuse his mind and bring him to a proper appreciation of what is being done here. I do not blame him entirely; I blame the whole system under which these proposals are submitted to Parliament. But I may say in passing that almost 100 per cent of what he has said is not applicable at all as far as this item is concerned, because apart from the exclusions which are mentioned in Item 284, there are also the rebates, which are provided for in the Third Schedule. In most of his remarks the hon. member has overlooked the existence of the Third Schedule which will be in the Act itself. That is why I rise at this early stage. I want to begin with the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson) who referred to Items 61, 334 and 190, in respect of which he says that the recommendations of the Board of Trade were either ignored or not accepted. The Board of Trade, of course, regards the matter purely from the point of view of protection. That is also a very important matter in dealing with tariffs, but it is not the only matter; I have to deal with the question of revenue and with the saving of foreign currency, and this is one way of preventing the unnecessary spending of foreign currency; this is the fiscal means of doing it. Let me give one example, the question of candles. This item is intended to discourage the demand for imported candles, expensive fancy candles. Candles carry a duty of 42c per 100 lbs. which, at to-day’s values, is ineffective. The local industry is capable of satisfying normal requirements, but expensive fancy candles are being imported. Curtailment of the demand for imported candles of this type was also an object in increasing the duty. The object is not only to protect the local industry but also as far as possible to discourage the squandering of currency on unnecessary importations.

The hon. member also mentioned sunshades and umbrellas. There the position is that the duty on these articles at present is very low. It is only 10 per cent ad valorem, and it has been increased by 10 per cent to bring it into line with the duty which is at present applied in respect of other non-essential goods.

Do you regard an umbrella as a non-essential?

I certainly regard some of the fancy sunshades as non-essential. Umbrellas are also manufactured here. At any rate, that is a type of non-essential item. I know that sometimes it is essential, but I am afraid that usually we have it with us when the sun is shining and we have not got it with us when it is raining.

Last year when we raised the duty on a certain number of items to 20 per cent, this was really an item which should have been included and it was overlooked. We are now bringing the duty on this item into line with the duty on those items in respect of which we raised the duty last year.

As far as the duty on blankets is concerned, the position is that in the trade blankets are really divided into two classes, those over 12 ozs. each and those up on 12 ozs. each. While the Republic is self-supporting in the field of blankets, only blankets over 12 ozs. are protected by tariff. The materials from which blankets, etc., are manufactured are also manufactured in this country and are all protected by tariffs. The articles mentioned in the heading here too usually fall into two classes, the cheaper type of baby blanket and cheap body wraps and kaffir sheets. Neither class was protected by tariffs, but as the materials from which they are made are subject to high-protective duties, an anomaly existed. The materials were subjected to duty, but the finished product was not. Not only are our own factories not encouraged to produce this type of article, but the consumer is encouraged to buy an inferior imported article, whereas for the same price a much better article could have been made from local materials. The duty on the articles in question was increased from 10 per cent to 25 per cent, or 10c per lb. whichever is the greater in order to remove the anomaly, that is to the same level as the duty on blanketing. Having regard to the maximum weight of 12 ounces each for this class, it is evident that 10c per lb. hardly ever comes into play, and only the increases in the ad valorem duty need be considered. An analysis of the imports of these articles shows that 488,000 at an average free on board price of 17c each were imported from Japan in 1960, and 225,000 at an average free on board price of 41c each from the United States of America. The imports from the other countries are negligible. The increase in duty, 15 per cent, on the very light and cheap blankets and wraps from Japan represents approximately 2½c each, and the incidence of the tax is so low that it can hardly be said that the cost-of-living of any class will be affected thereby. The blankets imported from the Western countries, however, compete directly with blankets manufactured in this country, and the increase in duty was intended to curtail imports. The industry applied to the Board of Trade and Industries for protection in respect of these articles, but the Board considered that the articles here concerned are mostly purchased by the poorer classes and rejected the application, as the hon. member has said. The foregoing particulars indicate, however, that the increase on the cheaper types will be negligible and the protection in respect of the more expensive types is justified. The increase in duty was designed to afford the desired protection. The extra revenue of the whole item shows how small the incidence is—it amounts to R27,000.

I come now to the other point in regard to Item 284, paperback books. Hon. members will notice that there are certain exclusions in the proposals as printed, which already exclude a large scope—some of them mentioned by the hon. member for Turffontein. There is for instance an exclusion of books for young children, which he was quite eloquent about; they are excluded specifically. Then there are further exclusions. The Third Schedule also provides for rebates. I must say at once in regard to this matter that in my Budget Speech I said that unfortunately at that time we had not been able to devise a method of separating the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunately also under the procedure that we have, I was not in a position to discuss this matter with the book trade before introducing my Budget, and therefore at that time I could merely say that we did not know in which way we could separate the good from the bad, but since my Budget Speech, I had of course had an opportunity of having very full discussions with the book trade. I met a deputation from them. They sent in a memorandum, and they were consulted throughout, and now as a result of that, the position is entirely different from what the hon. member for Turffontein has represented here. Sir, a rebate will be proposed in the Third Schedule to cover broadly two big categories. The one is approved series of religious and educational books, the other books which also appear in hard-cover editions. Most of the books the hon. member has mentioned have appeared in hard-cover editions and a rebate will be granted on them. The notice will appear simultaneously with the Act. When the Act is promulgated this notice providing for these rebates will also be published. I can give the hon. member an example and also the reason why we could not introduce it here. The reason is that it would entail a large number of particulars which we can’t have in the item here. This will be an addition to paragraph (9) of the relevant Government notice: “Approve of the duty-free admission under Item 326 of the customs tariff of the following articles: (a) The following series of educational books for children”. There are about 18 series and they may be added to from time to time, but they are the ones which we have fixed in consultation with the book trade; and then (b) the following series of religious books and periodicals. There are two series there, “Christian novels” and “Lily Stories”. Those, as I say, are the practical reasons why it is inadvisable to include these two broad categories under the exclusions under Item 284. Each series must be approved separately and other provisions will also have to be made as to deciding whether they belong to the category of soft-covers that have been in hard-cover editions previously.

But, Sir, being in the First Schedule as these exclusions are, gives no great protection than being in the Third Schedule. It is the same protection. Hon. members may perhaps argue: But why not bring them in into the First Schedule? Both of them can be amended at any time by the Minister by Government notice, either the First Schedule of the Third Schedule under the 1959 Act, amending the 1955 Act. Now as a result of these consultations which we have had with the Book Trade Association of South Africa, this has been put forward in this way. They were consulted from a very early stage; they sent in a memorandum, and I think I can fairly say that all their suggestions have been incorporated in the proposals we have now before us. It was agreed and everybody was satisfied that there were very good books, soft covers, which we would want to exclude, but the difficulty was to find a practical way of doing so. We put the problem to them and they told us that they agreed; they also told us of the large importations. Hon. members will be surprised what quantities of what they call “remainders” are imported. They define “remainders” as “being that part of a publisher’s edition which he feels can no longer command the published price when sold, but which might find a market at a lower price elsewhere”. It could be said, says the Book Trader Association, that the Republic of South Africa is one of the few remaining markets where the flow of such “remainders” is unrestricted. They are not imported by titles, they are imported in bulk; they are really dumped in South Africa, and we have allowed that and this has been one of the few remaining markets in the world for these “remainders”. Then they say another very important class of trash in literature—and the “trash in literature” is not literature which is imported by these booksellers themselves—is imported through wholesale channels for merchandising. These booksellers usually don’t import those books, but there are a couple of these big wholesalers importing these as merchandising. They import them, but they don’t distribute them under certain titles. They simply send a lot of books to be sold and those not sold can be returned. In addition they say, one of the most dangerous forms from the point of view of “trash”, is the “library series” novels, and they are being imported into South Africa at a rate of 80,000 per week. This is what the Booksellers Association tells me. It is very difficult to find an accurate figure, but I should imagine that a fair calculation would be that we have an importation, of all these soft covers of about 8,000,000 a year. The hon. member referred to the evidence before the Select Committee, but I think that evidence did not include imports through the Post Office, which is very considerable. In fact the bulk of the soft cover books are imported through the post, and the evidence that the hon. member has quoted does not refer to that fact which was stated in evidence. The second group of books mentioned by the hon. member is not fiction at all—they are all scientific books, but they don’t fall under fiction. That is why I got up at this early stage because else we would have an interminable putting up of Aunt Sallys and knocking them down where they don’t exist in fact. But what I want to emphasize is that we have by means of the exclusion in Schedule I and by means of the rebates in Schedule III, practically made tax-free all those books in respect of which representations were received. They are now free from duty. The Book Trade Association of South Africa were consulted throughout; they have helped very materially to assist us in carrying out the intention to tax only trash and to free the good books. I think we have succeeded in doing that. I am very grateful to the Book Trade Association of South Africa, and I may also say to hon. members that the final form in which it appears here to carry out our intentions is a form which was approved by the Book Trade Association of South Africa. So now we have got what I have said in my Budget Speech, namely that we do not want to tax the good book, we want them to come in duty-free, but at that stage I did not have at my disposal the means of making that separation between good and bad, but now we have, and I think the arguments of the hon. member are not at all relevant to the position as it will be when this Act is approved.

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

Mr. Chairman, in view of the Minister’s absence I wish to move—

Upon which the Committee divided:

Tellers: A. Hopewell and T. G. Hughes.

Tellers: D. J. Potgieter and P. S. van der Merwe.

Motion accordingly negatived.

When the Minister replied to the point I made earlier, I think he attempted to create the impression that the Book Trade Association had in principle no objection to this tax, and that in fact the association was perfectly satisfied with the position as it is. Let me tell the Minister right away that my contention which I made in my first speech was on the principle of taxing literature, and the Minister did not reply to that. I would like to put in perspective what in fact were the representations made by the Book Trade Association. The Minister said that he had been in continual consultation with that association. I would like to ask the Minister how many times he saw them. To my knowledge, the only time that the associations had consultations with the Minister was certainly not at the Minister’s invitation, but as the result of representations made by the association in respect of this tax, and that is the only time, as far as I know, that the Minister had any consultations with them. The Minister received a memorandum from the association which made it clear, as I understand it, in the opening paragraph, that the association did not accept the principle of the imposition of a tax on imported literature. But when the Minister stated to the association in the first few minutes of that consultation that the main purpose of this tax was to earn revenue, and not as a means of censoring trash, the association could not argue with the Minister any further and they then discussed with the Minister the best means of attempting to alleviate the situation. But here we now have the remarkable position where the Minister says to the association that the main purpose of this tax is to raise revenue, but to-day, in reply to me, the Minister said he was prepared to grant exemption up to almost 100 per cent of the imported literature. I do not want to give the wrong interpretation, but I noted what the Minister said, that there will be rebates of up to almost 100 per cent, because of the examples I quoted to the House, which will not be subject to tax.

Good books.

It is no good the Minister now attempting to qualify what he said earlier The Minister tried to give the picture to the House and the country that he is merely imposing this tax to restrict trash, because there will be almost 100 per cent exemption. I submit, with respect, that the Minister to-day attempted to create a completely incorrect picture of the attitude of publishers and the book trade in general in respect of the principle of this tax on literature.

Then there is another matter that I wish to discuss with the Minister. The Minister persists in talking in terms of millions of publications. Now a publication can be a periodical or a magazine or a hard-covered book or a paper-back. If you look at the picture in terms of millions, let me say immediately that many more millions of publications come into the country than the mere 8,000,000 the Minister mentioned. But the Minister cannot say that 8,000,000 undesirable paper-backs enter South Africa because the evidence of his own officials before the Select Committee contradicts that. [Interjections.] For the benefit of the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever), who appears to have been aroused to some measure of interest in the measure, I quote again paragraph 32 of the Select Committee. The question put to the witness was whether he had statistics of the pamphlets that enter the Union in the course of a year, and his reply was that this was an extremely difficult question to answer, but to give the Committee an idea of the imports he can say that, coming in by sea freight and requiring a declaration, such as books and printed music cleared through the Customs in 1961, that was to a value of approximately R2,500,000. I am not now referring to the newspapers he referred to in the latter part of his evidence.

Why do you not quote paragraph 33?

You give only half the facts.

Well, let me give the House the other half, which is not affected by this taxation at all. In the further statement made by this official, he said this—

But the Minister said to-day that the majority of them come in through the Post Office. [Interjections.] I do not know what the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) is getting so agitated about. We are dealing here with the principle of taxing literature, and whatever argument or attitude the Minister adopts today, our opposition to this tax is that we are opposed to the principle of taxing literature, because once this principle is accepted the mere limitation is by Government whim alone as to what other forms of literature will be taxed. That is the issue in this proposal. The Minister said he would give exemption as the result of the suggestions he got from the Book Trade Association. That is correct, but the association to my knowledge made no reference to any particular series of publications. I would like to point out the danger of a statement such as the one made by the Minister this afternoon. In the Select Committee on the Publications Bill certain evidence was given as to what constitutes an undesirable series of publications. I do not want to name them. I took the trouble to look up, let us say, X series of publications printed in paper-back form, and to find out what was the position in respect of one series mentioned by that official. Out of the thousands of titles published in the course of a period of time since 1946 until the present time, only approximately 40 of these titles were banned from entering the country by the Censorship Board. But when you get the attitude that entire blocks of series of publications will be prohibited, where are we going to end? Because the Minister says to-day that representations can be made to him in respect of any of the series, for which he will give exemption. In other words, we will have the position that this tax is not for revenue-earning purposes, but that a series can get exemption from the tax if it can be shown that this series constitutes desirable reading, in the opinion of a Customs official or of the Minister.

The Minister goes further and says: I am going to grant these exemptions, because if it can be shown that any paperback had previously been published in overseas countries in hard-cover form, it will get exemption. What are the tendencies in this regard? In France, Germany and America thousands of books are printed, but are never put into hard covers. In France it is an unusual thing today to find a book which is first published in hard-cover form, even by the best authors. So all this literature will now be subject to a duty for censorship purposes, not for revenue purposes. I submit again that it is completely unfair of the Minister to have attempted today, in trying to justify this tax, to say that the Book Trade Association had no fundamental objections to the imposition of the tax itself and that it was their desire to use this method in order to attempt to prohibit the entry of undesirable literature.

I appeal again to the Minister. There are far-reaching implications attached to the principle of taxing literature and the thoughts of men, which can be freely made available to people in a cheap form. Once this principle is accepted, there is no end to what can be done and the manner in which it can be applied. Finally, the Minister said that I gave false examples in my earlier speech. I throw that accusation back at the Minister, because all the books I mentioned here to-day had a tax paid on them recently. The Minister said: Why mention children’s books? Why does the Minister not look at his definition? Let me read it: “Printed soft-cover fiction books and booklets, including any periodicals consisting predominantly of a single complete novel or story in a single issue.” These examples that I quoted to-day of children’s books are counted as serials. They are stories or periodicals consisting predominantly of one story. In spite of the exemption the Minister grants, they are still in terms of the original definition, without the exemptions, subject to taxation, and in fact taxation has been paid on them. So I throw the accusation back at the Minister, because I do not want to be accused of having given false examples to the House in order graphically to illustrate the effect this tax will have. It is bad in principle and bad in every way, and I am appalled to think that in our country a Government can attempt to tax cheap literature which can be made freely available to the ordinary man in the lower income groups as a means of controlling thoughts. I find it objectionable and I will vote against it.

I want to say only a few words with reference to what the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has said. He refused to accept the assurance of the Minister that there will be discrimination between literature and “rubbish”. [Interjections.] That is what they call “trash” in English. The hon. member tries to give the House the impression that such a small number of books are involved, and then he quotes from the evidence before the Select Committee on on Undesirable Publications, paragraph 32, to show that it is only R2,500,000 worth. However, the evidence of Mr. Hattingh goes further. He says newspapers and periodicals are not included in this estimate. But in paragraph 33, which the hon. member did not want to read, it is said there are many more things than that. It says—

That the hon. member read, but not what follows—

And every bag contains about 200 books.

They are newspapers.

But he then says they are books.

Read paragraph 41.

You can read it yourself. The hon. member is now again doing what he did the other day when he told us how many van der Merwes there are on his voters’ list. He reads only what suits him; but we are concerned here with what goes only to one post office in South Africa, and it is 1,000 big bags per month. But we have hundreds of post offices in South Africa, and quite a number of them are larger than that of Cape Town, such as Durban and Johannesburg, and how many are not going there? The hon. member must not tell us what a small quantity it is. He should rather base his arguments on logic, irrespective of the quantity. I say that many of these paper-back books one gets, and which the children can buy freely, really are of such a quality that one should be ashamed to permit something of that nature to come into one’s home, and that is what the Government is trying to do, to keep those things out, but not to withhold decent literature from the public.

I wish to confine myself to paragraph 3, on page 865, the excise duties on unfortified wines. There are two groups of our population that are particularly interested in that. The one group are the people I represent, the Coloured people, who are the biggest consumers of unfortified wines. I maintain that this excise duty will have an effect upon their pockets. I would like to mention what it has done so far. At the beginning of the year the cheapest liquor a Coloured man could buy from a bottle store was a small container of three bottles of wine, or half a gallon, and for that he paid 45 cents. After that one cent was added to the farmer’s price, but then the 15 cents were added in excise duty, or nine cents for the half-gallon, and the price has risen to 62 cents throughout the Peninsula at the present time. In other words, it has not only risen in accordance with the extra tax, and the cent the farmer has received. The seller has taken a chance and raised it still further in order to make more profit, which I think is unwarranted. I mention this because my people are affected by it. I know the Minister will tell me that liquor is a luxury and one just has to pay for it, but for the Coloureds it is not such a luxury. To them an apple, a peach or a pear is a luxury. There is no excise duty on fruit, and these people cannot afford those things. Now they buy this wine and it has a great nutritive value to them, and in addition they derive a little pleasure from it.

Now I come to the second group of people who are affected by this tax, and they are the wine farmers. For the wine farmer it is creating a precedent. In this country there is no agricultural product which is subject to tax in its natural state. Our unfortified wine is the natural product of the vine and now for the first time it is being taxed. Why is a direct tax not imposed upon wool or maize? The principle is the same. This duty is now going to mean that the Minister is going to get R19 on every leaguer of wine. I as a wine farmer received R26 from the K.W.V. for the same leaguer. Surely it is rather a big swig out of the bottle when the Minister in one swig gets almost as much as I who have worked the whole year for it.

My last objection is that we wine farmers were in the privileged position that we had received a wine card or quota, and all the people in this House pester us, for we could receive 15 proof gallons of brandy from the K.W.V. without having to pay duty on it. That was fair and proper, and there are few hon. members in this House who did not derive benefit from that. But since the Minister has imposed this excise duty upon unfortified wine, they are deducting it from my wine card. [Interjections.] Go and find out. They are now deducting it from my wine card. It is no good the hon. member for Paarl denying it. The K.W.V. is within a mile of his home, and he has not yet even taken the trouble to go and find this out. So I wish to move as a further amendment—

I am prepared to accept the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux) as an authority on wine, but I am not prepared to accept the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) as an authority on literature. I am anxious to make an appeal to the Minister to drop this taxation altogether. I am grateful to the hon. member for Constantia for introducing this amendment, and I am pleased that we have had a member of the Select Committee on Publications here to-day to express what the Select Committee found. It found that it was impossible to control the importation of this literature in the manner proposed. We have dropped the Publications Bill; I would like to appeal to the Minister to drop this taxation for this reason: It is impossible to impose control in this manner. We have found that these books can be imported through any port in South Africa and through the post. The ordinary methods of control break down. But that is not all. This is not a tax on literature only; it is a tax on English literature. There are no Afrikaans books coming in in this way. The Minister in his Budget speech described some of these books as “trash”, but if we wish to publish Afrikaans trash, we import the English book, translate it into Afrikaans and sell it here without any tax. That is the method that is followed. It has been said in this debate that these people are dumping cheap literature here. Let them dump it. Why should we have any tax on literature? The more literature we have, the better; and the cheaper, the better. When the Minister tells us that he has been acting together with the Book Trade Association, I am sure the association will not approve of any system of taxing books in this manner. But if they are told that there will be a tax, they will naturally collaborate with the Minister to make the plan work as far as possible. The hon. member for Turffontein showed us these books. This will mean that if we produce cheap volumes of Dickens or of Charlotte Bronte, they will be taxed because they are cheap. [Interjection.] But if these books put their Sunday clothes on and come to us with leather covers, even though it is imitation leather, they are exempt. When they are made cheap for our schools, and our young people can use these books as prescribed books, because they are cheap, they are to be taxed. Then the Minister says the Schedule will explain it all. The Schedule will put it right. Sir, is it worth all the trouble? Why all the fuss? Here we have a Minister of Finance dealing with a Budget of hundreds of millions of rand, and he comes along with this pettifogging tax on books. Why do it?

On certain books.

I want to say that this has now become not an ordinary tax, as we assumed it was during the Budget debate. It has now become an act of censorship, because we now have to decide what books are desirable and what books are not desirable. They have transferred it now from censorship of the Press to censorship of the publication of books. That is a very serious step. I should like to warn the hon. the Minister that he is treading on dangerous ground there. Shades of John Milton in Areopagitica! That has been tried for hundreds of years—

When you enter into censorship, do not try to censor books. You will censor good books. Do you think that young children reading what the hon. the Minister describes as trash, would choose the trash if they were shown something better?

Certainly they would. You did it when you were a child.

Of course I did. The hon. member takes my point immediately.

In the reverse way.

Of course I did. I read the penny bloods, and then as I made progress with the penny bloods I came to the king of the bloods, Treasure Island, and from Treasure Island to the rest of Stevenson and from Stevenson to the best of our authors.

And back to trash again.

That is the process. If there are people who are afraid …

[Inaudible.]

I was not appealing to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker). He has now reached the stage when he starts with the penny bloods again.

He thinks you are speaking about something on the menu.

I understand that the total amount involved in this tax is R125,000 at the most, if no books are excluded.

Where do you find that?

That is the figure I have from this Committee.

What is your figure?

I do not know what figure the hon. the Minister will give us. I appeal to the Minister to drop this tax and to have the matter investigated. Not until the Publications Bill has been presented and has been passed in this House, should we have this taxation. You see, Sir, they went together. We should have had a Publications Bill this Session. That was, of course, the plan, but the Publications Bill has not come, and because it has not come I appeal to the Minister to drop this tax. He is not going to forfeit much in income. We put up a proposal under taxation this morning where he was going to drop R11,000,000 and we had a serious discussion on it. This is not worth a serious discussion. I appeal to the hon. the Minister to drop this tax, to make this gesture to the book-trade and to young people who have to learn to read. That is what we want—education of any kind.

I would like to refer the hon. the Minister to page 8 of the Report of the Select Committee on the Undesirable Publications Bill.

Paragraph 41.

Paragraph 41, I think, has been touched on. Here we see that Mr. van der Walt said—

The answer was—

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled on this occasion to discuss the Report of the Select Committee on the Undesirable Publications Bill, in view of the fact that according to the Order Paper legislation to that effect is to be introduced?

Yes, the hon. member is entitled to do so as the report of the Committee will not be considered by the House this Session.

I was quoting Mr. Hattingh’s answer—

Sir, those are not my words. This same book has to be scrutinized repeatedly in order to realize the object of the Minister in this particular context of the question of taxation. Then on page 9, after some reference to certain companies which put out certain series, certain books, some of which are undesirable and some of which are quite acceptable, Mr. van der Walt was asked—

Which is the Minister’s intention here—

The answer was—

Order! The hon. member is going into the question of censorship now.

No, Sir, with respect, I am going into the question of exemption. The Minister has referred to the exemption of certain books, although they be paperbacks. I want to show—and with respect I think I am within my rights—that he cannot cover, let alone to solve the problem with his intended action. But in any case I merely want to complete that sentence; I will not quote this report again—

Of course, we are very well aware of the fact that the same series, the Penguin series, has the honour of presenting to the world a paperback edition of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. I would like to know whether that is good literature or not, but I do not want to involve the Minister in a literary discussion. The point as to whether “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was literature in a hard-cover edition, and is not literature in a soft-cover edition, becomes very much a matter of opinion, and is, in fact, the Minister’s problem; he has a problem. Sir, I would like to support the contention that this taxation will produce relatively very little revenue. I am prepared to give the Minister the name of the person concerned, a person who is very prominent in the book selling and importing trade, who has estimated that the revenue receipts from this particular taxing machinery is not likely to exceed R100,000. In regard to the possible effect of the principle as it may be applied on reading tastes, a comparison with countries—and I do not say this in disparagement of our own country—with a longer record of civilization and a know-how in these matters, shows that they have never sought to apply the kind of restriction that the Minister seeks to apply; it confirms that there are the two evils, if one may call them that, and the lesser evil must surely be to let well alone.

The final point I want to make is this. It appears that as far as the hon. member for Pretoria (Central) (Mr. van den Heever) is concerned, he accepts quite open-heartedly that anything that can be read, which appears between soft-covers is trash, or what he calls “rubbish”. Sir, that is a generalization: I will never forget that we have it on the authority of the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) that all generalizations are false, and therefore I say that that generalization is false. For example, if I were to say to the Minister or to the hon. member for Pretoria (Central), “Here is a paperback, in the technical and literal sense of the term; is it rubbish?”, he would immediately say “Yes”; but what I am holding up is the Report of the Select Committee on Public Accounts! Similarly, this books comes to me, for example, through the post. In this case it would have to be scrutinized repeatedly, according to Mr. Hattingh, in order to determine exactly what was inside this book. It may not be what it purports to be, and yet this book which comes from the United States is called “Federal Laws, Regulations and other material relating to Highways”; but I do not know, neither does Mr. Hattingh nor his staff, until it has been repeatedly scrutinized in other words read, at least—what salacious material would be included and publicized between these innocuous blue covers. Sir, I believe the Minister to be a logical man.

You are very young here.

I am not prepared to say that I speak with any vast experience, but I repeat that I believe the Minister to be a logical man. In this particular case, if he were to weigh the arguments, pro and con, in regard to what he proposes to do, he may well agree that it is better left well alone than to deal with any form of literature or the printed word in the way that he proposes to do, so I join in the appeal made to him by other hon. members on this side of the House.

I should like to repeat that the object of this legislation is not to act as a board of censors here. It is not concerned with the Act to which reference has been made here. That Act has quite a different object. The one seeks to impose a prohibition; the other seeks to levy a tax. It may still be imported if it falls within the law, but a tax has to be paid on it. That is the material difference. We have had discussions with that object in view as a result of this material difference, and, as a result of the fact that we are aiming at not taxing any good book if it is at all possible, and because that is the object, and because the object is not a total ban, the method that is to be used is quite different from that applied under the Undesirable Publications Bill. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat has referred to the evidence of Mr. Hattingh to show what the approximate cost will be in personnel to exercise proper control for the purposes of that Act. But, for the purposes of the tax, we shall not use that method. Hon. members might have acted more wisely had they waited to see what the Bill provides, for here it is not a case of every individual book being examined to determine whether or not it is dutiable. There are certain categories in respect of which a statement under oath by the importers will be sufficient. So, to compare the two things simply is to compare two things that are incomparable, and all the arguments based on this false comparison therefore fall away.

The hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) is equally confused. I am surprised that a person who has been an inspector of schools can stand up here and try to defend all paper-back literature as he calls it. I should say it is the written word at its best. We do not wish to tax literature, English literature or any other literature. But we wish to save valuta on the import if trash, and if we cannot prevent valuta being spent for that purpose, then, in any event, we want the people who are going to digest that trash to contribute to the Treasury. That is what we are after. It is not that we propose to establish a board of censors here. These categories are broad categories we set up in accordance with the Book Trade Association’s suggestions. I do not know whether the hon. member for Kensington is aware of it, but they are the ones who assured me that those library series are the greatest lot of trash, dangerous trash, you can import—and the hon. member wishes to protect it!

As regards the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant), you must forgive me, Mr. Chairman, if I say that I do not wish to express my opinion on his conduct, for, if I were to do that, I would be contravening the Standing Orders. But I should just like to mention an example of what the hon. member for Turffontein is doing here. He reads the item that is taxed, but then he does not read what is being exempted. He says I have said that 100 per cent of the paper-back books may now come in. Had I said that, then even he could have realized that it was a foolish statement, for then it means that no duty could be collected. What I did say is that nearly 100 per cent of the books he mentioned there are excluded either under the exemptions or under the rebate that is instituted; that is what I said. That is only one example—there are many other examples—of the unreliability, to put it at its lowest, of any comment coming from that hon. member. The hon. member has referred to the Book Trade Association. I should like to quote what they say—

All of us agree with that.

It was with a view to the exclusion of that type of book that we had discussions with them. That is what they say in their memorandum. Before they interviewed me, they knew already what our views were. They came on that basis and they said—

It was on that little point that they, in the same paragraph, gave me the advice on how to decide what is trash. They say—

And then they mention three categories. They did not accept the principle whether there should be a duty or not; they were not asked to accept that, and I did not say that they had accepted it. I said that they accept that in practice there could be discrimination between trash and literature for purposes of taxation. They assisted me in establishing that distinction between the two classes of the written word. I leave it at that. Now I should like to say a few words to the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux). Perhaps he was speaking in different capacities here; I do not know which was predominant. I must say that, as a wine consumer, he has a case. He has to pay more for his wine now; but, as a wine producer, I cannot see that he has a case unless, perhaps, he is drinking more than he is producing. I shall accept, as I know the hon. member, that this duty will not in any way interfere with his assuagement of his natural thirsts. But I should also just like to add this general principle to that. I think it is as well that I state it again. My general principle with the duty was this: It is no good singling out one form of alcohol or another. For the purposes of Defence, I want every form of alcohol that is consumed to contribute; that is why I have included everything; everything that is alcohol is included as far as I know.

Except Bantu beer.

No, the hon. member will see there is a rebate in respect of Bantu beer that may be suspended at any time. If it has an alcoholic content, it will also be dutiable. Where traders have taken the opportunity to make bigger profits, they have immediately reduced their prices after my previous statement in regard to the matter. But hon. members must remember that the price increase did not come about merely as a result of the increase in duty; there was an increase in the price of wine, too. That is why I am saying that, as a wine producer, the hon. member has no case. In so far as he is a consumer of wine, he has a case, but I think he will be readily prepared to drink those few little drinks—and I am sure it will not be more than a few—for his father-land and his people.

Last night when the House adjourned, the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) put a question to the Minister asking him in his reply to deal with certain types of immigrants, and I am quite sure that the hon. the Minister will do so. I would also like to apologize for the absence of the hon. member for Natal (South Coast) who has had to go away. But I want to deal with this from a slightly different angle. In the Other Place, earlier on, this hon. Minister, who is new to this portfolio (and the portfolio itself is quite new) indicated that it is the object and aim of his Department and of himself to try and step up the rate of immigration into South Africa. We on this side of the House realize the value of that and I would like to assure the hon. the Minister that in his efforts to do that, he will have our support, because we, I hope in the same sense that he does, realize that one of the solutions of our problems here, and we have always stated this as a matter of policy, is to step up the White population, to increase our skills, and I believe that that will contribute in a large measure to the future welfare of South Africa. But having stated this, the hon. the Minister has introduced a Vote totalling some R2,942,000 which shows an increase over last year of R825,000. That in a Budget on Revenue Account of R790,000,000! It seems to us to be a very small amount, especially when you take into consideration that of this increase of R825,000 only R521,000 is being applied directly to the improvement of immigration, the rest being for administration. We feel that if the Minister is sincere and really intends to step up the rate of immigration into South Africa, he will have to put forward a far better picture to us and to the country than he does in these Estimates. You see, Sir, he indicated in his previous statement that this Government was doing a terrific amount towards bringing people here; they were contributing the sum of R60 to the fare of immigrants to this country, and after they had arrived here and they found themselves in financial troubles, they could get an interest-free loan of a further R60 to tide them over until they could get work, that R60 having to be repaid in two years after they have secured employment. He also indicated that in other small ways they were prepared to help immigrants by way of rail travel to employment and temporary housing until they secured employment. The hon. the Minister put forward these items as being a great contribution towards immigration to this country. Of course it is nothing of the sort. These are just frittering little amounts. If the hon. the Minister wants to get immigrants here, he will have to do better than that. Let him investigate the amounts being contributed by countries such as Australia and Canada, who have been successful in their efforts to obtain immigrants. Sir, what value is the hon. the Minister getting for his investment or R60? Because that is the only contribution he makes, apart from his contributions to I.C.E.M. and bodies such as that? His direct investment in an immigrant in total is R60 plus a few other incidental expenses and that is nothing, because what does he get. We have pointed out on more than one occasion that the immigrant he gets, if he is trained in some skill and comes from the Western World (and that is where this Government wants to draw the immigrants from) is a man in whom his country of origin has already invested some £3,000 to £5,000, that is up to R10,000, to bring him to the stage of development and skill that he has attained when you import him into this country. What a return for an investment of R60! Surely to goodness if we want to encourage immigrants to come to this country, we will have to revise our approach to this matter. This sounds more like a bet on a racecourse than a sincere effort on the part of the Government to attract immigrants. I would like to put it to this hon. the Minister that he will have to revise his whole idea, all his ideas, in regard to attracting immigrants to this country. An amount of R60 is frankly a drop in the ocean. If I were a prospective immigrant sitting in a country such as Germany, France or Britain or any of the other countries from whom we wish to attract immigrants, I can assure you that I would get very much better and more attractive offers from many of the countries I have mentioned, than I can get from this Minister who is prepared to assist me to the extent of R60.

Then I would like to know from the hon. the Minister how many immigrants he wants to attract here per year. You will remember that the Viljoen Commission put forward a figure of some 25,000 a year as being necessary to maintain our tempo of development economically. The Government, which this hon. Minister has joined, I think at the same time accepted that a figure of 15,000 a year would be sufficient. But we know that this country of ours was able 50 years ago to support an increase in the White population of some 50,000 to 60,000 a year. So surely with the stage of industrial development we have reached now, the figure of 15,000 per year is so outdated that the hon. the Minister should now be in a position to give us a far more satisfactory figure than that. Other countries have shown their ability to absorb immigrants. They have shown that the absorption of those immigrants has created employment and raised the standard of living for all, and surely we here in South Africa want to do exactly the same as that. So I would like the hon. the Minister in his reply to give me some indication of what the latest idea of this Government is in the way of the number of immigrants they want per year. Then I would like to know from the hon. the Minister how he is going to overcome some of the difficulties with which he is going to be faced in inducing immigrants to come here. I would like to mention one quickly which has come to my notice in the form of a letter. It is written by a man who immigrated to South Africa from Germany at the age of 46, but before he came here he had contributed to a contributory pension scheme, in his homeland, Germany, for 32 years. He is now settled here, and made this his home. Now the sudden discovery has come that if he takes on South African citizenship, as he wishes to do, he loses all his benefits to which he has contributed for 32 years. He has found too that had he gone to America, or Canada or Australia, where there is also a contributory pension scheme and where there is reciprocity between the countries, that he could have assumed the citizenship of those countries and still have retained the benefits to which he has contributed for 32 years. But here in South Africa, which he has now made his country of adoption, the man cannot assume South African citizenship for the very simple reason that he will have no security for the future. He probably won’t qualify for our old age pension or have any other form of security in his old age, and if he surrenders his German nationality and assumes South African nationality, then he loses everything that he spent a lifetime to build up. Surely people in the same position as this man would choose in future, and are choosing to go over to Canada and those countries which offer reciprocity, where the savings they have placed in the bank in the course of their lifetime are not just frittered away and surrendered in return for the citizenship of another country. This is just one of the difficulties with which this hon. Minister will have to deal. He will have to face too the impact of the Commonwealth Relations Bill which is going through this House at the moment. I do not know what ideas he has to deal with the shocks that are going to come from that in relation to people we have in the country. How many are we going to loose? Has he get any idea? How many are going to assume South African nationality and remain? What effect is it going to have upon those whom the hon. the Minister wants to attract here? These and a host of other questions are in our minds, and as he is a new Minister with a comparatively new portfolio, we would like an indication from him in his reply as to certain of these points and in regard to his policy in general. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Durban (Umlazi) (Mr. Lewis) has made a point of criticizing the hon. the Minister because he is offering only R60 per immigrant as maintenance for those who emigrate to South Africa. I should like to say at once that I would not mind if the Minister were to increase that amount, but, of course, one does not wish to increase it to such an extent that it later becomes a profession to emigrate. If every country offers a large sum of money, it will be a paying proposition after wards to move from one country to another just to make a living out of it. We shall have to guard against that kind of professional immigration.

The hon. the Minister has already indicated in the Other Place, I think, what he is doing to promote immigration to our country, and I should like to put it to the Opposition now that they also can make an important contribution to that end, and the contribution the Opposition can make in this respect, is to conduct themselves in such a manner towards the Government and towards our country, that it will attract immigrants to our country. When one has regard to the kind of criticism levelled at the Government by hon. members opposite, it is no wonder that there are people in Western Europe who hesitate to emigrate to our country. If I were a person living in those parts of the world, and if I were to hear from day to day from the Opposition Party in South Africa how terrible things are in our country, how the Government is creating a Police State and how the people are being oppressed and how the heavens will fall upon us eventually, as the Opposition has tried to indicate in connection with this sabotage legislation once again, then I shall consider it very carefully before I emigrate to this country. That is why I appeal to the Opposition to contribute their share also to attracting immigrants to our country regardless of how important the share of the Government necessarily has to be in doing so.

Let us take over the Government.

The party of the hon. member who is so noisy now, are not only scaring away people who want to emigrate to our country, but they are also driving people out of our country. I have here a whole collection of cuttings of people who have left our shores as a result of this kind of propaganda to which they are being subjected. You may almost call them political fugitives. Here is one of them that comes from Natal, Mr. Harry Guest. He left our country as a result of the kind of scare stories with which the United Party wants to scare the people in our country, and I am now quoting from the Cape Argus of 21 December 1961 …

Order! But the hon. member is now discussing the opposite of immigration.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I merely wish to point out that we in South Africa have two duties if we want to encourage immigration to our country, and I also wish to deal with the question of the many people who are leaving the country, for that surely also falls under emigration. I should like to quote from the Cape Argus. Under the heading “Emigrated, but they returned disillusioned”. I want to read only the first two paragraphs—

Not just for no reason, but as a result of the political stories of hon. members opposite. The newspaper says—

Then the person explains to the newspaper how he was scared away by the kind of story that we are still getting from the benches opposite every day, and how he tried to go and find happiness overseas, and how, when he arrived there, he found: But, goodness me, South Africa is one of the most peaceful countries in the world.

There are several reasons why it is difficult at the present time to get immigrants to come to South Africa, and the one is, as I have said, the conduct of the United Party and the opposition parties in our country. That is one of the most important reasons. But I should also like to mention other reasons why it is particularly difficult to get immigrants at the present time. One reason is that the whole position in the outside world to-day is different from what it was say 20 years ago. You must not forget that under the United Party Government, in 1945, when in that year nearly 25,000 immigrants came to South Africa, things were humming overseas. The world was afflicted by war and poverty and misery prevailed and the people tried to flee to get away from those conditions. That is why the United Party could boast that in 1945 they had brought a record number of immigrants to South Africa in 1945. But what is the position in the Western countries to-day? Last year Dr. H. J. van Eck undertook a tour through Lebanon, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, America and the rest, and he found that the conditions in those countries were such that the reasons for emigrating at the present time are absolutely minimal. The people there are happy. The world to-day is living in a different state, and the people are satisfied to live in those countries. That is why it is so difficult indeed to get immigrants to come to South Africa. It is difficult to go and take a man by the scruff of the neck over there and bring him here. It is difficult also to make it so attractive that you can draw him here, for such a man may be disappointed. A man may emigrate because everything that is enjoyable is held forth to him here. He comes here and finds that everything is not quite so nice. So we make him a disillusioned person, and we shall find that he is not a successful immigrant. But, Mr. Chairman, the point I really wish to make is this: I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether in his immigration planning he will give more attention to attracting immigrants from the Africa states to our country. When all is said and done, they are the people who have first-hand knowledge of the conditions in South Africa, and who have first-hand knowledge of the general political scene in Africa. We are finding to-day to a great extent—I do not wish to label all with the same tag—that in Europe and other countries too a spirit of liberalism has emerged which virtually borders on Communism. It is so difficult for such immigrants to be assimilated in a country such as South Africa. They are not familiar with the problems we have. They first have to consume, as the old Boers said, a bag of salt with us before they will know this country and its problems. But it is different with those in Africa who are living in those areas to-day where they are having such a difficult time. Everywhere in Africa, in Ruanda Urundi, in Kenya, and everywhere there are certain people who cannot stay there any longer as a result of the political developments there. I am convinced that those immigrants, if they were to come to South Africa, will be a great asset to our country. [Time limit.]

Seldom in our history has a Cabinet Minister had to face the great responsibility which this Minister of Immigration has to face. The decisions which are made now will affect generations to come and in fact the history of South Africa. If we are to survive on this Continent we must have large-scale immigration. This is our life blood. There are thousands in Kenya who are waiting to come down to South Africa. I want to know if we are doing everything possible to encourage them to come to South Africa. Furthermore, I want to know whether the publicity given in those countries is sufficient to encourage these people and to know what they are going to come to when they do come here? We all know that publicity on the wrong side will discourage them. I think we must give them a true picture of what our country is like.

Mr. Chairman, I was greatly shocked to read in the Press that for the first four months of this year the figure in respect of immigration has in effect dropped by something like 475 people as compared with the same period last year. I feel that we cannot afford to let this sort of thing happen. I shall be glad if the hon. Minister will clarify that position for us. Sir, the cross of civilization has been carried on the southern tip of Africa by our forefathers for over 300 years. We can be very proud of the efforts they have made. Let us be proud to carry the torch of civilization for our children and for our grandchildren to come. We face grave dangers. The lights of civilization are going out all over Africa. This is the last bastion of civilization. The hand of Black nationalism aided by Communism, is stretching down over Africa, coming ever closer to us. This is something which we have to face. It is stretching down to grab possibly this country of ours with its civilization and with all its wealth. Mr. Chairman, the writing is on the wall and time is running out. We have not a minute to spare. We must redouble our efforts and every true South African must help wherever he can to encourage immigrants. The hon. the Minister must make a supreme effort. He has a grave responsibility and our very existence on this Continent may depend on the success of this ministry. Our destiny is at stake.

I should like to thank the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City) (Mr. Odell) for the splendid spirit of his speech. I shall return to his speech later on. While I am expressing a word of thanks, I should also like to say thank you to the hon. the Minister …

Of course.

I am not accustomed to expressing thanks, but great work is being done here, as I shall show. I should like to thank the hon. the Minister and the new Department for what they have already achieved in a very short time. This expansion that has taken place with regard to the appointment of immigration attaches, the development that has taken place with regard to the organization internally to provide employment for immigrants to our country, as I shall show just now, deserves our thanks. The hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) referred sneeringly to the amount the Government makes available to every immigrant. We have to bear in mind that the amount available is R60 per person. If it is a family of four persons, it is an amount of four times R60. In addition there is a loan of R60 per person, which will amount to a further four times R60 for that family. In other words, it may amount to a considerable sum per family that is brought out to South Africa. Much is done to-day to let the immigrants feel at home. I have here a letter for instance that appeared in the Star on the 17th of last month, from the immigrant who expresses thanks to the Minister and the Department. He says this—

Then he continues—

And then he says—

Then he continues—

Now I say that we have the right to say thank you very much, if that is the spirit in which the Department approaches its work, namely its officials overseas as well as those accompanying the immigrants, and those who receive them here in South Africa. I say that augurs very well for South Africa.

Now, we realize also that it is difficult at the present time to get the kind of immigrants we should like to have. I know hon. members opposite will say: Yes, you have missed the bus. Last night again they said so here in connection with the previous Vote. But the fact of the matter, Mr. Chairman, is that hon. members themselves have to bear a large share of the blame for the fact that we get fewer immigrants. [Interjections.] I shall prove that. If you take the immigration statistics, you will see that the number of immigrants entering the country dropped very rapidly in four periods; and the number of emigrants leaving the country rose in two periods. Now I wish to mention the years. The years in which the numbers dropped sharply were in 1950 and 1951. That is to say, when the National Government had just recently come into power. In 1960 again the number dropped tremendously. In 1960 it reached the lowest ebb of 9,700. I think the reason for that is very clear. It is because hon. members opposite and the Press supporting them had created a climate overseas to discourage immigration.

That is nonsense.

No, I am not talking nonsense. Hon. members at one time said, through one of their Ministers, that they wanted to introduce immigrants to the country in order to plough the Nationalists under. I should like to tell hon. members it has really been to their advantage that immigrants have come to this country, for the majority of the immigrants will not vote for us, particularly if they come from Britain. But the conduct of hon. members and their Press has had much to do with the drop in the number of immigrants. Then I should also like to mention emigration. If we look at the emigration statistics, we shall see that in the year 1950 14,600 people left the country. That is, more people that immigrated to our country in that year. In the year 1951, 15,300 people left the country; again more than the number of people who entered. Now I wish to revert to 1960. In that year, 9,700 immigrants entered the country and 12,000 people left the country. Last year 14,000 people left the country. Now I say it is only the climate that has been created overseas, and it is the climate that has been created internally, that detrimentally affects immigration. I wish to prove that with a small report that appeared in the Star. This report says that there are many indications that things are going better in South Africa and that we are going to get more immigrants. It concludes in this fashion—

This is a recent report that appeared in the Star on 6 June—

That is the climate we should like to create, the climate hon. members opposite are fighting and tried to destroy. Then this report goes on to say—

Now I say thank you very much that at this moment we know that the tide is now turning and flowing to South Africa. That is why I wish to appeal to the hon. member opposite to help us create the spirit that, if we want immigrants, the people will come to South Africa. [Laughter.] Mr. Chairman, I do not know why hon. members are laughing. They are pleading all day long that more immigrants should come to South Africa. They should help us to create that atmosphere and climate that is necessary to enable us to get the people to come here.

Now I should like to conclude by saying that it is no good us losing contact with practical possibilities. The hon. member for Umlazi talks about 50,000 people per annum. We should remember that when we introduce an immigrant and his family, it means we have to provide him with many things. We have in the first place to supply him with employment; we have to provide housing for him in the second place; his children must be provided with schooling etc. There have to be medical services. In Australia for instance it has been estimated that the State alone invests about £2,000 or R4,000 per immigrant in order to bring him to Australia. Now I say if we have to bring in 50,000 people, it means that you have to invest R100,000,000 to introduce these immigrants. We have to have regard to realities. I am in favour of expanding immigration; I feel very strongly about it and I am grateful that something is being done.

If you have an opportunity to get 50,000 immigrants will you take them?

I should like to point out to the hon. member what the experience of Canada and Australia has shown. I have on a previous occasion used the simile that the economy is like a sponge. It can absorb only a certain number of people, otherwise they are squeezed out again. If we look at the statistics of immigration and emigration of Australia, and at that of Canada, we shall find that the years in which they received the largest number of immigrants, were more or less the same years in which the largest number of immigrants left those countries. The economy cannot absorb people just holus bolus. The economy has to expand sufficiently to be able to absorb more people. That is why I say we must be practical. I hope that if our economy is capable of absorbing 50,000 people per annum, and if we can supply them with housing etc., schools and all the things that go with it, that we shall then be able to get them. I should like to tell hon. members that if we accommodate 50,000 people, it will make an enormously big town. Just think of all that goes with it and the services that will have to be provided. In other words, one has to maintain contact with realities. That is all I am pleading for. That is why I say we should like to have many immigrants, and I do hope that hon. members opposite and the Press supporting them, will help to promote this climate referred to by the Star and to have it grow, and that the stream of immigrants we can get will come to South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I am an immigrant. There are only two of us in the House—the Prime Minister and myself.

What about me?

The hon. member did not come here; he was imported. South West Africans are not immigrants to the Republic of South Africa, not yet. I hope the day will come.

Mr. Chairman, that I should have lived to see the day when a member of the Nationalist Party would upbraid this Party for stopping immigrants—a scheme for immigration! We had a scheme for immigration at the right time. Immediately following a great war there is always a desire for a movement of population. Read this book on demography which we get from the Government every month and you will find that it is explained to us. When the opportunity presented itself the Government took that opportunity, the United Party Government of the day. And members of this Government Party complained about the immigration scheme of those days. I have speeches where they said: “For God’s sake stop this scheme.”

Why.

Why? For the same reasons as to-day. Because people were unemployed, but not as many as there are to-day.

There were no houses for them; there was nothing for them.

Sir, when we discuss the prospects of South Africa in competition with other countries to obtain immigrants, we must appreciate our own position. And our position is not a very good one. When we were in the Commonwealth this Government introduced a citizenship law which made it necessary for an immigrant to be a Commonwealth citizen for five years in South Africa before he could become a South African citizen. And what did the other countries of the Commonwealth do? Within six months, two of them said, he could vote in an election and the other two said he could vote within 12 months. We said he could not vote unless he became a South African—after five years! There has been no encouragement. I want to have a look at the success of the hon. the Minister’s Department—or lack of success. I want to quote figures from this book of statistics which we get. The latest I have are in respect of 1961. The hon. member for Pretoria (West) (Mr. van der Walt) has just told us what the position was in 1960. He said that we were to blame. Nine thousand seven hundred and eighty nine came in—9,800, let us take it at the nearest hundred—and 12,600 went out. That means a loss of 2,800.

Why did they leave?

Because they did not like this Government. The total loss is 2,800 and for that we ran an Immigration Department! It is not an Immigration Department, it is an Emigration Department. And do not call these people “immigrants” when they come here; do what Australia does; they call them “new Australians”. We do not allow people to be called “South African we say “hy is ’n Engelsman”.

I now want to take 1961, which covers the period we have now. Last year there came into South Africa 16,300 immigrants. It was a fairly successful year because only 14,900 left. There was therefore a net gain of 1,400. We ran an organization costing almost R2,000,000 to get them! It works out at about R1,400 per immigrant. That is the measure of the success we are having at the moment. Now, where did they come from; where did they go to? Of the 16,300, 9,300 immigrants came from Africa. They are not Africans; they are not African citizens. The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. P. S. van der Merwe) calls them immigrants. They are not immigrants; they are refugees. That is what the hon. member for Piketberg called them. They were refugees who came to this country. And what does the world say about them? The world says: The White man’s outposts are being driven in on the main body. This Government made a statement last year to the effect that it did not want those people to come to South Africa. They wished them to maintain the position they had in the Federation and further north. They are the outposts of our civilization. I think it is out of the question that we should offer inducements to those people to come here. These people should remain where they are if they can. If they have to come here, naturally we would welcome them. Nine thousand three hundred of the 16,300 came from Africa and the rest? Six thousand came from Europe. Take the people who left the Union. (Only a handful came into this country from Australia.) Four thousand six hundred left for Rhodesia. Five thousand one hundred permanent residents of this country left for the United Kingdom. One thousand eight hundred left this country for Australia. Whether they were fleeing from the wrath to come, I do not know.

How many came back?

I have given the figures. The general position is this, Sir: We are not attracting immigrants. And there are many reasons.

You are bitter.

I am speaking as an immigrant; I know what they want. When I came to South Africa I knew it was a land flowing with milk and honey. I knew the South Africans were wonderful people. I went to the platteland in the Transvaal and I was treated as though I was one of the people. I am sure that in that period of our history people were treated in that way. But there has come into our political life bitterness. I must say that I do not regard the declaration of a Republic as “bitterness”. But I want to say that the declaration of a Republic does not make this country more popular.

Don’t damage the climate.

I am not discussing the Constitution of South Africa. I am not discussing our political situation. I am looking at South Africa from the point of view of a prospective immigrant. A prospective immigrant to South Africa, having to decide between Australia and South Africa, would look at it in this way: If I go to Australia I have one language to learn; if I go to South Africa, to be a good South African I shall have to learn two languages. [Interjections.] It is a good thing. I am speaking as a prospective immigrant overseas, somebody who has never seen this country. What is the next point? The next thing he says to himself is this: I am emigrating to a country within the British Commonwealth, if I emigrate to Australia, the Commonwealth which is a large organization of nations. If I go to South Africa I am going to a country which is comparatively isolated. [Interjections.] I am not speaking now from anybody’s point of view; I am speaking of what our immigration agents abroad will have to have in their minds. Our people abroad will have to have these things in mind when they interview immigrants. At the present moment we are not getting them. It is not a question of what we are going to do. What we are going to do is like the story of the Bantustans. We are always “going to do it”. But we haven’t done it. I accept in all seriousness that he intends to do these things. I am taking the record of the previous year and we have failed; we have failed miserably. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I think it is time I intervened in this debate. The hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) put certain questions to me which I now propose to answer. The hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) put similar questions. I think I should give hon. members just a broad survey of the policy which I intend to pursue. I also want to answer certain specific questions which were put to me. The hon. member for South Coast asked me for a policy statement. At the same time he said that he did not want a repetition of what I had said in the Other Place earlier in this Session. Well, of course, it is very difficult to give a statement of policy here which is not the same as the statement of policy which I made in the Other Place. May I point out, Sir, to hon. members that what my predecessor announced in this House on 17 May 1961 and refer also to the statement of policy which I made in the Other Place, which constitute the Government’s policy on immigration and that is the policy which I am now trying to implement. The hon. member for South Coast and the hon. member for Umlazi mentioned various classes of persons in respect of whom they wished to have further information. I will, therefore, first deal with the people who come from Kenya. Mr. Chairman, for very good reasons, reasons which I think hon. members will appreciate, the Government is not in a position to recruit immigrants openly in Kenya and many other African Territories. The Governments of those countries do not favour open recruiting and it would certainly not be in the interests of the people there whom we are trying to help if the wishes of their governments were ignored. On the other hand, it has frequently been announced that those Whites in Kenya and certain other African territories such as the Congo, Tanganyika and Algeria are very welcome to settle in South Africa. Although it is impossible to take active recruiting measures, as I have said, a special brochure was compiled fully to inform immigrants from African territories especially as regards assistance available to them. These brochures are supplied on demand, and judging from the many inquiries received I am satisfied that people in Kenya and other African territories are to-day well aware of the possibilities for settlers in South Africa, as well as the inducement which we offer. Immigrants from the above-mentioned territories are assisted in the following way: (1) a grant of R60 per person irrespective of age; (2) an interest-free loan of R60 per person repayable over a period of two years after placement in employment; (3) inland transport from place of entry to temporary accommodation or place of employment; (4) accommodation at State expense from arrival until placement in employment; (5) assistance as regards job placement. Apart from Government Departments, various outside bodies and individuals render valuable assistance; (6) all immigrants from African territories are accorded very generous rebates and concessions in respect of customs duties, for example: (i) used personal effects may be imported free of duty; (ii) used household effects up to a value of R1,600 per family are not subject to duty; (iii) new household effects up to a value of R400 per family may be imported free of duty; (iv) dutiable goods which may be necessary for the livelihood of the head of the family or other independent persons or the maintenance of their households are as a special concession admitted to a value not exceeding R6,000 without payment of duty, or alternatively, duty on such goods to an amount of R1,200 is remitted, whichever is the more beneficial to the settler. Businessmen and industrialists who import dutiable stocks, machinery and equipment are given concessions on a sliding scale. For instance, up to a value of R6,000 they pay no duty, between R6,000 and R10,000 the duty is 30 per cent of the amount normally payable, between R10,000 and R14,000 it is 60 per cent of the normal rate, and over R14,000 they pay the full duty. Then motor-cars may be imported under a rebate system, which allows for considerable deductions, depending on the age of the vehicle. (7) Farm implements are stored at Government expense until such time as owners are placed in employment; (8) bona fide farmers may apply for loans and financial assistance from the Government Departments concerned and the Land Bank. They are treated on an equal footing with our own people; (9) the Government has also decided to assist elderly people from Kenya and Tanganyika to settle in South Africa.

For the information of hon. members, I would like to point out that where parents come to the Republic with their children, and if their age is such that they will qualify for old age pensions, we will consider their applications for old age pensions without the necessary residential qualification. I think that is a big concession.

In this case which I quoted, where the man came here, but has not yet qualified for the old age pension, what is his position?

I want to answer that question at a later stage. Also, for the information of hon. members, I would like to point out that not only farmers, but people from all walks of life, are coming to the Republic. Doctors, nurses, engineers, businessmen, clerical staff, etc., have made their homes here. We have been very fortunate in receiving prominent people from Kenya, which is to the benefit of our country. They are coming to South Africa to-day at the rate of 100 a month from Kenya.

I think hon. members should realize that it is by no means easy for the farmer who is unable to realize his assets, or the man who has held an executive post, to start afresh in a new country. South Africans are known for their hospitality, and I think it is up to all of us to go out of our way to assist these people to find new positions and security in our country. Apart from Government Departments, many organizations and private individuals have already rendered valuable services. Mr. Chairman, perhaps you would permit me to mention the name of the Speaker of this House, who has shown a lively interest in immigration from Kenya and has played a very active part in the placing of people from Kenya. In letters and interviews which we have received, settlers from Kenya have expressed their gratitude in no uncertain terms for what South Africa has done for them.

Although it is true, as the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) says, that most of these people speak English only, those with the necessary qualifications are considered for Government appointments. Those with qualifications equal to our matriculation certificate are appointed in the Service on contract for a period of six years, and they will later be considered for permanent appointment.

I now come to our neighbouring territories, namely the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Angola and Mozambique. The governments of these territories, in order to stimulate development and build up a stable economy, are also endeavouring to settle as many Whites as possible in those countries. I think it is also in South Africa’s interest that these countries should prosper, and we have no intention of encouraging the Whites in these territories to migrate to the Republic.

Apart from the Customs concessions which are applicable to all immigrants from African territories, immigrants from the above-mentioned neighbouring territories are not entitled to the R60 grant or the R60 loan, or to inland transport or free accommodation. If they come, however, they are welcome, and they will be assisted by the Department of Labour in finding suitable employment. Bona fide farmers can, of course, also apply for agricultural and Land Bank loans. But by far the majority of immigrants who come from African territories are Commonwealth citizens. Of the 9,299 persons who came from these territories during 1961, 5,827 were from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and 1,528 from Kenya and Tanganyika. Although South Africa is no longer a member of the Commonwealth, we have taken special administrative steps to facilitate the entry of these people to the Republic, and the change in status is hardly noticed by those applying for settlement in South Africa. Now, I think this fully answers the issue raised by the hon. member for South Coast, and also to some extent by the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis), but I think I should say something about immigration from Europe and the United Kingdom.

As hon. members know, offices have been opened in London, The Hague, Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Berne, Rome and Athens. In the United Kingdom the Government is assisted by the 1820 Settlers’ Association and Samorgan, a private company under the chairmanship of Mr. J. G. Foggitt. The latter organization also has offices in London, Glasgow, Liverpool and Belfast. With a view to recruiting immigrants, special arrangements have been made to send overseas persons of repute to give talks and lectures to interested groups. They are appointed on contract for a period of up to six months, and wherever possible are drawn from the ranks of immigrants who have settled here permanently. Under this scheme Mr. J. van de Sande is already operating in the Netherlands. He has been there for some months now. Since his arrival, interest in migration to South Africa has been stimulated and inquiries have shown a marked increase. Mr. T. Glynn Morris, Director of the 1820 Settlers’ Association, has agreed to undertake a similar mission in Great Britain. His tour of the United Kingdom commences on 1 August 1962. Apart from lectures, use will be made of advertisements, film and television shows and brochures dealing with subjects such as: (1) Housing facilities in the Republic of South Africa; (2) education facilities; (3) assisted immigration; (4) taxation, which I think is going to be a trump card in our immigration policy, the low scale of taxation we have here; (5) employment prospects; (6) the immigrant housewife; (7) climate and geographic conditions; (8) Customs facilities; (9) duties and concessions in respect of motor-cars and other vehicles; (10) quarantine regulations; (11) social welfare and health services; (12) weights and measures, etc. Hon. members will see that we have covered the whole gambit of our life in South Africa. Sir, I am leaving for Great Britain and the Continent of Europe on 23 June to see for myself whether our organization is functioning satisfactorily, or whether further improvements should be brought about. I am visiting seven countries, and it is my intention to compile a full report on my visit to these countries, and I will probably make certain recommendations which I will place before the Cabinet in due course. I need not mention that all immigrants from these European countries will also receive the facilities I mentioned in respect of Kenya. Furthermore, arrangements have been made with shipping and air transport companies for special reduced rates for immigrants. This scheme has been well received overseas and our London office alone to-day is already handling an average of 100 inquiries every day from interested persons in Britain.

Now the hon. member for Umlazi raised the question of a certain German, I think, and whether he retains the benefits as long as he contributes to the pension fund in Germany. At least, the question was whether he would lose the benefits of a fund to which he contributed in Germany before settling in South Africa. The reply is that he retains the benefits as long as he continues to contribute to the pension fund in Germany. It is correct that he forfeits the benefits when he assumes South African citizenship. But I may say this, that only this week a cultural agreement with Western Germany has been concluded, and it will now be possible to investigate these matters further. But in spite of the existing position, South Africa is still getting German immigrants. We are getting quite a few. I may say this, that as regards the British pensioners, they are not affected by the constitutional change. They will continue to draw their pensions from Britain. I think that was the question raised by the hon. member for Constantia (Mr. Waterson). I would also say in passing, for the information of hon. members, that the South African scheme is better than that of Canada, because Canada only grants loans and they make no grants at all.

The hon. member for Umlazi also raised the question of immigrants from member-countries in regard to transport expenses. Well, we have an agreement with I.C.E.M., as hon. members know, and I may just say that the cost of transporting immigrants who are sponsored by I.C.E.M. is financed from the following contributions: (1) The country of origin contributes; (2) the recipient country contributes, i.e., South Africa; (3) there is a subsidy by the U.S.A. to I.C.E.M. to help them in their administration; (4) the I.C.E.M. organization contributes itself, and (5) the immigrants themselves contribute. Even before the Government scheme for financial and other assistance to immigrants came into operation last year, an arrangement already existed whereby I.C.E.M. transported immigrants to the Republic under the aforementioned formula, but then the contributions under (2), i.e., by the recipient country, were paid by the employer or the next-of-kin of the immigrant. But, as from June 1961, the Government assumed this liability itself and continued to contribute on the same basis, which was in operation at that time, namely R44 per person of 12 years and older, and R22 for each child under 12 years. So that is a further contribution towards the cost of the transport of immigrants.

I may tell the hon. member for Umlazi that I had a case of a family of seven who were transported from England to a town in the Free State at a total cost to the individual of R192. This amount was also made available by the Government as an interest-free loan, repayable over two years. [Laughter.] That is a typical case. I do not know what hon. members find amusing about it.

The Government said immigration was a curse to the country.

I have never heard that immigration was a curse to the country.

You are a curse to the country.

I think the hon. member has a very vivid imagination. In all the years I sat in this House I never heard anyone say that immigration was a curse to this country.

I would gladly exchange you for any immigrant.

I want to deal with what was said by the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City).

Order! Hon. members must not converse so loudly.

I want to give certain figures, in reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (City). These figures which I have, I think, hon. members will find very interesting, particularly in view of the speech made by the hon. member for Kensington. I take 1961 first. I will not read the figures out. I will just read the plus or minus to show how many immigrants came to South Africa. I have the emigration figures and the immigration figures, and the gain. In January 1961, there was a loss of 89, in February there was a loss of 279, in March there was a gain of 379, in April a gain of 400, and in May a gain of 150. So for those months there was a net gain of 1,119. In 1962, in January there was a gain of 107, in February there was a gain of 276, in March a gain of 410, in April a gain of 947, and in May a gain of 875, so that in those five months there was a net gain of 2,615. Hon. members will note that in the months of April and May 1962, there was a very big improvement.

But I want to give figures in regard to professional men who were leaving South Africa and coming to South Africa, and I think the Committee will find this very interesting. There is no doubt about it that it is of the greatest importance to our country that we gain more professional people than we lose, obviously. For the period 1925 to 1959 the only loss recorded was for the year 1945, when we suffered a loss of 30. We had 257 immigrants, and the emigrants were 287, professional men. During 1960 and 1961 the losses, as far as professional men are concerned, also occurred, but the indications are that the situation is now definitely changing for the better. This is borne out by comparing the emigration figures for 1962 with those of 1961. The emigration of all classes dropped from 6,020 for the first five months of 1961 to 4,554 for the same period in 1962. A relative decrease in the number of professional emigrants can therefore confidently be expected. I think that too much importance should not be attached to the figure for one particular year. Although a loss was suffered in the professional group in 1945, it did not mean that the country had no future. It was purely a temporary phase, and in the succeeding years a regular gain of professional immigrants over emigrants wiped out the losses suffered in any bad year. I want to give the Committee the figures in respect of professional people from 1946, and I will give the gains or the losses. In 1946 there was a gain of 530; in 1947 a gain of 2,466; in 1948 a gain of 2,640; in 1949 a gain of 812; in 1950 a gain of 500; in 1951 a gain of 731; in 1952 a gain of 832; in 1953 a gain of 891; in 1954 a gain of 860; in 1955 a gain of 770; in 1956 a gain of 525; in 1957 a gain of 503; in 1958 a gain of 488; in 1959 a gain of 350. Now we come to the bad year, 1960, when we lost 411. That is the difference between the emigrants and the immigrants.

It was 2,600 according to the statistics.

No, I am talking now about professional men. 1960 was a bad year. A lot of professional men left South Africa in that year.

After Sharpeville.

Yes, I suppose so. In 1961 we lost 391. Hon. members will see that for the period 1949 to the end of 1961, the net gain of professional immigrants over emigrants was no less than 6,560, and I do not think that this a figure of which any Government need be ashamed.

But now I want to come to this point, particularly in regard to the hon. member for Durban (Central) (Dr. Radford) who is a doctor. It is not generally realized that the stringent rules of certain bodies controlling professional groups make it impossible for certain foreign professional men to practise in South Africa. That applies particularly to doctors and to veterinary surgeons. Inquiries from prospective immigrants have recently shown an increase as far as professional men are concerned, and negotiations have already been instituted with the governing bodies with a view to having some of these restrictions removed. I am having negotiations at present in regard to this matter with these professional bodies. Hon. members will agree with me, of course, that there is a world shortage of professionally qualified persons, and it is a pity that we are not always in a position to accept these highly qualified persons who are keen to come and settle in South Africa; we cannot accept them because of these restrictions which I have mentioned.

Even in Britain there is a shortage.

South Africa is not the only country to have lost on the professional side in recent years. Let me give Canada as an example. Canada is in the position that the immigration of professionals is expected to maintain itself while emigration continues to rise. Canada is losing professional men to the United States of America. I want to assure hon. members that this question of restrictions applying to professional people who are anxious to come to South Africa is one which I have very much in mind, and we are seeing what we can do about it.

I think I have answered the points raised by hon. members so far. I think the hon. member for Umlazi (Mr. Lewis) wanted to know how many immigrants we want to come to South Africa per annum. As I said in the Other Place, as far as we are concerned the sky is the limit but subject to our economic development. In other words, I am not prepared to encourage large-scale immigration into South Africa if I have big unemployment difficulties on my hands or if I am going to displace our own people from their employment. Obviously I am not prepared to do that.

What is the aim for this year?

I have no aim; I may get 40,000; I do not know. I will get as many as possible.

At the present tempo of economic development, what do you estimate is the number of immigrants we should have per year?

I am sorry I cannot give the hon. member an estimate. I have not had a complete survey made of the country, and I also have to bear in mind the fact that I must recruit skilled immigrants. It is no use my trying to get unskilled immigrants. Hon. members realize that that would simply create another problem. It is impossible for me to say what the figures are, but I can tell the hon. member and the Committee that with the increase in the number of immigrants we have had in the last two or three months we had no difficulty in placing practically all of them in employment. There are avenues of employment in all spheres of our industrial and commercial life and so far we have had no difficulty at all. I feel optimistic that we will be able to induce people to come to this country of ours when I can tell them that they will have a good life here, that wages are good, that educational facilities are good, that taxation is low compared to their own countries, that we have a wonderful climate and other things which make life worth living and that our way of life is a good way of life and that there is something for them and their children in this country.

I am not surprised that when the Prime Minister decided to embark on an immigration policy and to create a new portfolio, he picked an old United Party member to implement the policy. Sir, this is the first time that immigration is discussed in this House under a separate Vote, and I am reminded of the discussion that we had in this House when I first came here in 1948. I remember when Gen. Smuts sat here and questioned Dr. Doöges who was then Minister of the Interior on the Government’s immigration policy.

Gen. Smuts’ policy was to bring in the good and the bad.

Those were the days when immigrants were still coming into the country …

No selection.

…and now I have to sit here and hear the Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party and other Nationalist members shouting out, “Don’t you want immigrants? Are you not glad that immigrants are coming to this country?” We have been attacking the Government for 14 years because of a lack of immigration policy and because they killed our immigration policy. I want to ask this new Minister of Immigration, who was not always a Nationalist, who has just become a Nationalist now, if the Nationalist Party still abides by its old policy with regard to immigration.

Yes.

I hear an interjection from the hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo), “Oh yes.” Does the Minister of Immigration still abide by the old Nationalist Party immigration policy?

Selective immigration.

I am asking the Minister a question. Does he still abide by the Nationalist Party immigration policy of 1947?

I will answer that. My policy is still a policy of selective immigration.

And is it the same as the Nationalist Party’s policy of selective immigration in 1947?

Yes.

Sir, in 1947 there was a debate in this House on the policy of immigration. The United Party was still in power. The then Leader of the Nationalist Party, the late Dr. Malan, moved a motion, which read as follows (Hansard Vol. 60, col. 297)—

I am not going to quote what Dr. Malan said in that debate because he is no longer with us, but I am going to quote what the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Louw) said in that debate because he is still with us.

Order! I think the hon. member is going too far. The hon. member is going into history now; he must deal with the Vote before the Committee.

Sir, I am dealing with the Minister’s policy and the Government’s policy. I want to find out if the policy of the Nationalist Party is still the same. I have asked the Minister if his policy is still the same and he says it is. I want to quote what their policy was and then ask him if that is still their policy, because if it is I want to criticize it. I am quoting what the policy of the Government is, Sir. This is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs had to say in 1947 (Hansard, Vol. 60, col. 65)—

They expected an increasing measure of unemployment and a possible post-war depression. They requested the Government—

Order! I must ask the hon. member to come back to the Vote. We are dealing with immigration here.

Sir, I am dealing with the Government’s policy, which was to restrict immigration.

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

Sir, I am dealing with the Government’s policy of immigration and I want to ask the Minister if this is still his policy.

Order! The hon. member has made his point and he must come back to the Vote now.

Sir, I just want to quote the third request that was put to the Government in that motion—

The people who were to get permits for permanent residence were to be restricted to the following categories—

Permits for permanent residence must be restricted to those who are not members of the Jewish race. I ask the Minister: Is that still the policy of the Nationalist Party and, if not, when it was changed? Then I want to quote the final paragraph of the motion—

Is this Government still opposed to any international schemes for immigration? When did it change its policy? Sir, I go further. In 1948, the Minister of the Interior (Dr. Dönges) stated his policy with regard to immigration, and this is what it was (col. 297)—

That was at the time when we had the fear expressed of the “onderploeging” of the Afrikaner, and that is why Gen. Smuts’ immigration scheme was killed. I take it that they no longer fear that; that that is no longer to be a consideration. Sir, I do not want to go back to points (2), (3) and (4) because you do not want me to go back too much into history, but I want to ask the Minister about the fifth aim of the Nationalist Party’s policy as set out by the Minister of the Interior—

When was that policy changed? When was that fifth aim of the Nationalist Party’s policy of immigration changed? What was the attack on Gen. Smuts by the then Minister of the Interior (Dr. Dönges) in 1948? He got up in this House and thanked the Union-Castle Company for agreeing to cancel an agreement which Gen. Smuts had made with them that certain Union-Castle boats would be put at the service of immigrants; all Gen. Smuts did was this: He guaranteed that the Government would pay the fare if the berths were not taken up 100 per cent. The then Minister of the Interior (Dr. Dönges) himself admitted to the House that the Government had not been called upon to pay a penny. But the then Minister of the Interior said that he had cancelled that agreement because it was not the policy of the Government to take any responsibility for the passage costs of immigrants. In fact he said it was contrary to their policy. He affirmed what was said in 1948 in that resolution in which the present Minister of Foreign Affairs put forward the immigration policy of the Government. Sir, that was 14 years ago. When was the policy of the Government changed? We attacked it then and we have since attacked other policies of this Government, and it has been proved that we were right. It has taken 14 years for this Government to realize that they were wrong. In the meantime they sat quiet doing nothing. [Interjection.] Sir, the Minister of Coloured Affairs is just as responsible as any other Minister. [Time limit.]

The trouble is that you cannot convince the country that you are right.

I have listened attentively to the debate and I had expected that when we came to the question of immigration, it would be discussed on a non-political basis. But I am not surprised that the spirit changed when the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) began to speak. In the first place, what is required when you wish to attract immigrants to your fatherland, is that you have to take into consideration what your country can absorb under present circumstances. It struck me immediately that the first requirement one demands of an immigrant is that he should be loyal to his new fatherland, and that he should be prepared to take an oath that he will do everything in his power for his new fatherland and that he will in all respects be loyal to the country. What struck me immediately, is that the two members opposite who rose after each other, refused to take an oath of allegiance to this country. That, is why I do not take their arguments too seriously. I have more respect for the arguments of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg, though I may differ from him in politics, for I know he regards South Africa as his fatherland.

I should like to put the cause of South Africa in a different light, and I should like to get away from the political side. What is the difference between the numbers of immigrants who went to Canada, Australia and South Africa? In the first place Australia was willing to take any immigrant, both skilled and unskilled. The reason for this was that unfortunately there had been one strike after another in Australia, and Australia said that they were willing to welcome any unskilled labourer in Australia. If South Africa were to pursue the same policy that Australia pursued there, what will be the position in South Africa? What will be the position if unskilled White labourers were to come to South Africa, a strange country, where they have to compete with our unskilled labour? You can understand that it would lead to chaos. In the second place, let us take a country like Canada, Canada that threw open its doors for any immigrant. What is the position there at the present time? Here I read: “Migrants on move again. Recession makes Canada good place to leave”. I am quoting from the Star of 6 December 1960. I do not wish to dwell upon this for long, for I am anxious to get to other points. We find that immigrants are again leaving Canada at the present time, but nothing is said about that. However, if one immigrant leaves our shores, a tremendous fuss is made about it in the English Press. They report under big black letters that this person is leaving the country, and the reasons why he is doing so—how bad this country is. However in other countries, where hundreds of people leave the country again, they regard it as a natural phenomenon. One can understand that when a lot of immigrants come into a country, some of them will be disappointed and leave the country again, not because it is such a bad country really but because they cannot adapt themselves to the new conditions. Mr. Chairman, I had the privilege of living in another country for eight years, and I would like to give you the assurance that my opinion of that country during the last two years differed immensely from my opinion during the first six years. I could later on understand why the people were living there in the way they were, and why the circumstances there were what they were. I was not only a student there; I lived there, and that is why I know what I am talking about. When people come to South Africa, you must expect that all of them will not be able to adapt themselves to the circumstances here, and that some of them will leave the country again later on. I could quote figures here of the numbers of people who left Australia and Canada again after a certain time. The number of immigrants that leave those countries again is much greater than the number leaving South Africa again. Mr. Chairman, I wish to give this reply to the hon. member opposite who has just referred to immigration in the past. Suppose for instance that the National Party in their view has acted wrongly, although the people outside did not think so. But if we were wrong then, and it is our policy to-day to encourage immigrants, is it not their duty then to get up in this House and to support the Government to increase the White population, instead of quoting here what our policy in the past was or was not. But are hon. members opposite supporting the Government in its efforts to get immigrants? No, they do not. Just think of what has happened here during this past Session. Mr. Chairman, if a person overseas who wants to emigrate to South Africa, were to read the speeches made here during the past 14 years by members on that side, do you think he will come here? Of course he will not come. He will say immediately: If that is the position in South Africa according to Members of Parliament, then I refuse to emigrate there. That is why I should like to appeal to hon. members opposite to discuss the question of immigration on its merits. I now wish to appeal to the Minister and to the Government to give special attention to a certain nation I know well, with a view to immigration. I want to ask the Minister not to judge this nation according to the utterances that came in this House from countrymen of their’s who are members of this House. I am referring to the Scots. [Laughter.] Hon. members opposite are laughing, but my experience of a Scot is that when he adopts a country as his fatherland, he is a great asset to that country. The Scots are people who adapt themselves to the circumstances of the country they are living in, and I wish to appeal to the Minister and the Government to try to attract Scotch immigrants to this country. I suppose I shall now be regarded as anti-English again.

You have always been.

May I ask hon. members opposite whether they have any objections to us bringing Scots here? If there are other members who would like to have immigrants from other countries, let them rise and say so, but I wish to appeal to the Government, as an Afrikaans-speaking person, to try to attract as many Scots as possible to South Africa. In the first place I know of no country where a Scot has not been an asset to that country. I repeat that if the Government is perhaps going to judge according to the utterances of certain members in this House, they will come to the wrong conclusion regarding the Scots as immigrants. I should like members of the Government to attend Scotch functions and come into personal contact with these people. They will find out then that one Scotch immigrant will be worth as much to South Africa as ten immigrants from certain other countries.

We have just heard the hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) making an appeal for immigrants from Scotland. We have had no indication from the Government as to whether it is making efforts to get immigrants from any particular country; we have had no indication as to whether the Government is going to concentrate on one country more than any other country. We have had no indication, for instance, whether they are going to concentrate as much on Greece as on Scotland. I would like to know from the Minister, in view of this stated policy of the Nationalist Party, whether it is still the policy of the Nationalist Party not to take Jewish immigrants? [Interjections.] That was a statement of policy made by an important man in the Party, that no permits for permanent residence were to be issued to people of the Jewish race and I want to know whether that is still the policy or not. Surely it should be easy enough to answer that question.

It was the Nationalist Party which broke up the Grey Shirt movement.

I have already quoted from the speech made in this House on 25 February 1947, by the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I want to know whether the Nationalist Party has changed its policy since then.

You are flogging a dead horse.

Why are hon. members so upset? The hon. member for Mossel Bay (Dr. van Nierop) did not get up and repudiate the present Minister of Foreign Affairs when he made that statement in 1947. Why did the hon. member not repudiate him then? As I have said, a further statement was made in 1948 by the present Minister of Finance (Dr. Dönges). The present Minister of Immigration will remember that statement because he was sitting on this side of the House, listening in horror to the statement of policy made by the then Minister of the Interior (Dr. Dönges). Their policy was not to finance, not to have a state-aided scheme. May I ask when was that policy changed?

What was your policy?

Our policy was to give financial aid.

But you never did.

We did not have to give it, because we got so many immigrants without giving aid. We got 28,000 in 1948. And then the reply from the other side of the House was that we were bringing in too many people and that our people would be unemployed. We did not have to pay them to come here. [Interjections.]

Order!

The immigrants then were prepared to pay their own passage, and that scheme was killed. I want to know from the hon. the Minister what his scheme exactly is. In reply to a question as to how many immigrants per year he would allow, he replied just now that the sky is the limit. Well, when a man says “The sky is the limit”, we ask him to give us some idea …

He did not only say that, he added something. He said “As far as South Africa can absorb them.”

Surely if the hon. the Minister has got a scheme, he must have an idea as to how many he can absorb. The hon. the Minister says that his representatives are interviewing a hundred immigrants a day in England alone. Hundred immigrants a day are being interviewed in London!

I am also opening an office in Glasgow.

Well, then probably 200 people on the British Isles alone will be interviewed per day. Suppose all of them decide to come. Can the hon. the Minister take them? Surely he must have worked out some scheme. He knows that immigrants are coming from Italy and from Greece …

Let them all come!

The hon. the Minister says that he only wants skilled immigrants. Are the immigrants who are coming from Greece skilled immigrants?

The more the better.

What a change! The Minister must have some idea as to how many he can take. I am under the impression that I saw a report a little while ago that the Minister’s aim was 50,000 a year.

I do not know where that report came from.

Does the Minister think he could absorb 50,000 a year?

I don’t know.

But surely the Minister’s department must have worked out something. After all the Viljoen Commission estimated that we would require 25,000 a year to maintain our tempo of development. Surely the Minister’s Department must have worked out something!

The report is not the Government.

It is a pity that the Government does not accept some of the reports of commissions they appoint. I could think of another one, the Tomlinson Commission. Sir, the Minister must give us some idea as to what he thinks we can take. Because when we were taking 28,000 in the United Party days, we were told that that is too many, the country could not absorb them. If we had said that we intended to bring in 50,000 a year, there would have been cries of horror from the other side.

You would create chaos.

Order! I shall no longer allow all these interjections.

The Minister has opened up additional offices in Europe. He is opening another one in the British Isles. He himself is going overseas to see that they are properly organized. He quoted a few figures here to show that there has been an increase in immigration during the last few months.

And he turns round and says “This is a record of which any government could be proud.” Well, Sir, the Minister’s ideas have certainly shrunk very much since he has joined the Nationalist Party if he thinks that the number of immigrants they are bringing in now is a scheme of which any government can be proud. He must think back of the days of the United Party when we were bringing in these large numbers and when he thinks of what Australia has taken and what Canada has taken.

No longer.

But they have taken over a million in Australia since the war. They are still getting more to-day than we are getting, and for the Minister to say that any government can be proud of this achievement—I hope he is not going to adopt that attitude. Let him become optimistic again and have a bigger vision. Because if this is going to be the Minister’s yardstick of what his department can do, then I say it is a very sorry outlook for South Africa. The Minister has a long way to go. I want to ask him in picking his immigrants not to take the comb too fine, not only to bring professional people, trained people into the country. We need the others as well. We need semi-skilled workers. I ask the hon. the Minister to make a particular effort to try and get scientists and professional men out, because that is what we are lacking to-day. I would like to have an assurance from the hon. the Minister that he will offer some other attractions to these people than merely paying part of their passage. Those people need some other bait to come to South Africa. Scientists and professional men are leaving our country because they are getting more attractive offers abroad. I would like to know from the hon. the Minister what he is doing to restore the position and to bring back qualified scientists to this country.

It has always been the policy of the National Party to administer immigration in such a way that it will not disturb the composition of the White races here. This Government has always taken into consideration that the main sections of the White population consist of Afrikaans-speaking people of Netherlands descent, English-speaking people of British descent, of German-speaking and French-speaking people, and if now you were to import too many of one element by way of immigration, you may disturb the composition of the races of our country, and that is precisely what the United Party did in its days. You will recall an immigration debate shortly after we came into power in which the statistics were analysed, and it then appeared that the majority of the immigrants the United Party brought into the country came from one particular country.

England?

Yes, and as regards immigration from Germany that dropped tremendously, not even to mention French immigrants. But apart from that inequitable division they wanted to apply, what was the motive behind the immigration policy of the United Party? The late General Smuts said at the time, at a United Party Congress, at Pretoria I think—“We must bring them in their millions, the good and the bad.” Now I ask you, what must we do now with the bad elements, the dregs of other countries?

That is not true. He did not say that.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, may an hon. member say to another hon. member: That is untrue and he knows it?

Did the hon. member use those words?

No, Mr. Chairman, I said “it is untrue”.

The then leader of their Party said that they would bring in millions, the good and the bad. What was South Africa to do with the bad ones? In a country with so many problems such as ours, and having regard to the mentality of most of the people in Europe and the Western countries at that time, what were we to do with the bad ones? The hon. member now says to the Minister that surely he must have a certain scheme to absorb the people he wants to bring in. What scheme did they have to absorb those millions, the good as well as the bad? And what was the motive? I shall show clearly what the motive behind the immigration policy of the United Party was, against which the National Government set its face? The National Government did not want to bring in the good and the bad by the million. They wanted to have selective immigration, selected immigrants that would be an asset to the people of South Africa. But what was the United Party’s motive behind their policy? The hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp) and the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) in 1949 addressed a meeting at Vryheid and the hon. member for Hillbrow then said this—

I should like to mention here that when I read this report at the time, I approached the Editor of this newspaper and asked him whether it was correct, and I asked several people who had attended the meeting whether it was correct, and all of them confirmed that it was correct:—

I have on a previous occasion said it is a lie, a blatant lie.

During the election of 1953 this question was put to the candidate of the United Party in the Vryheid constituency at Weenen: “Do you agree with these words of Dr. Steenkamp?” and he said: “Yes, I agree.”

That is not what I said.

But the candidate of the United Party said in 1953 that he agreed with the words of Dr. Steenkamp.

That is a half-truth.

The question was put to him not once only, but was put to the candidate at other places too. No, that is why the National Government took preventive measures because they knew what was the motive behind the immigration policy of the United Party. The hon. member for Transkeian Territories is now deriving much enjoyment from it, and we know him, and when he becomes so excited, then we know he wants to fish in troubled waters. The hon. member is now introducing the whole Jewish question and he quotes what the Minister of External Affairs is supposed to have said in 1946. But are they forgetting that here in Cape Town there is a club, the majority of whose members belong to the United Party, where not a single Jew may become a member.

Is that our Party’s policy?

The hon. member should not stir up racial hatred for the sake of a little political gain here. But was he not one of the men who raved so much about the Ossewabrandwag, while an ex-General of the Ossewabrandwag is now sitting over there in their midst? Let me tell the hon. member that the Jewish community here in South Africa have great respect for the Government and in general accords loyalty to the Government because they trust them, because they do not contradict to-morrow what they say to-day.

How many Jews are there who are members of your Party?

Mr. Chairman, the United Party owes its existence to the stirring up of racial hatred and I take it very amiss of the hon. member for Transkeian Territories that in the times we are living in, and in the circumstances under which we are living, in these times in which the Government is doing its level best to get the very best immigrants for South Africa, he has come along and dragged into the arena racial hatred, and tries to make the people believe that this Government is the Government of racial hatred and that it discriminates against Jews. That is the most irresponsible conduct we have experienced during this Session.

I merely asked whether you had departed from the policy of not permitting any Jews.

Why did the hon. member ask that? If there is a Party that has changed its policy, it is the United Party. Nor does it know what its policy is going to be to-morrow, and what it was yesterday. The policy of the Nationalist Party has always been selective immigration.

In 1947?

My word, does the hon. member not listen?

But you are saying it has been that all the years.

It has always been a policy of selective immigration. We did not want to bring in the millions of bad ones. The hon. member should show a little more responsibility. What is a thorn in the flesh to him, is that this Minister, who formerly was a member of the United Party, now is such a highly respected Minister on this side of the House. That is the thorn in his flesh. And where are all their best members? All their best members are getting out of the United Party. It is only the weakest ones that remain. The best ones emigrate to the National Party, and we apply selective immigration in this case as well. [Time limit.]

It is easy to understand the reaction we are getting from Government members in this debate. No person likes to swallow his own history and his own past, and have to admit that for 14 years he has been wrong and that he has had to take a lesson from the Opposition. That is the reason for the reaction which we are getting from Government members in this debate. For 14 years we have warned them what they were doing to our future, to civilized standards, and the future of the White man in this country by weakening the White population, and now at long last they have had to try to find somebody who used to be on this side of the House to try to help them out of the mess which they themselves have made.

I want to refer to the hon. member for Vryheid who has just spoken before going any further. The hon. member for Vryheid quoted here in this House an alleged statement by the hon. member for Hillbrow. I challenge the hon. member for Vryheid to deny that he knows that on various occasions in his presence he has heard that statement categorically repudiated. I challenge the hon. member to deny that. I challenge him to deny that he knows that that statement has been repudiated by the hon. member for Hillbrow (Dr. Steenkamp).

And declared false.

When?

I challenge him to deny it, and I will produce the evidence that he knows that that statement was repudiated. Does the hon. member deny that he knows that that statement was repudiated?

He is too great a coward to say so.

On a point of order, may the hon. member say that the hon. member for Vryheid is “te lafhartig”?

On a point of order, may the hon. member say that the hon. member here is “te lafhartig, en hy weet dit”?

The hon. member must withdraw that.

May I say that the hon. member knows it and that if he does not say so, he is too great a coward to say so.

The hon. member must withdraw those words.

Then I withdraw those words. He knows it.

On a point of order, when the hon. member for Hillbrow withdrew, he again repeated “he knows it”.

The hon. member must withdraw unconditionally.

I withdraw those words.

Mr. Chairman, may not the hon. member for Hillbrow accuse the hon. member for Vryheid of being a coward, without adding the words “he knows it”?

Order!

May I say to the hon. member that he cannot state here in this House that he does not know that that statement has been repudiated by the hon. member for Hillbrow. He cannot.

Will you allow me…

Is the hon. member rising on a point of order?

No, Mr. Chairman. On a point of personal explanation.

Order! The hon. member for Durban (Point) may continue.

Mr. Chairman, on a previous occasion the hon. member for Hillbrow said that he did not use those words at that meeting, but I believe the people who were present there.

In other words, the hon. member for Vryheid stands up in this House and reads deliberately and I say maliciously …

Order! The hon. member may not use that expression.

On a point of order, the statement was made with the malicious intention.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “malicious”. He may not accuse an hon. member of maliciously making a statement.

I withdraw the word “malicious”, and I say that consciously and knowingly, the hon. member read out a statement which he knew to have been repudiated and denied by the hon. member for Hillbrow, in this House. By his own admission, the hon. member has admitted that he has heard and knows that that statement was repudiated in this House. Notwithstanding that knowledge, he reads it in this House with the intention of creating the impression that those were the views of the member for Hillbrow, whilst he knew that statement to be false.

Order! Did the hon. member say that the hon. member for Vryheid knew it to be false? The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw that and say that he knew it had been denied and repudiated, and the hon. member must accept such a denial in this House.

It was made outside.

It was repudiated here in this House. Mr. Chairman, I want to say further that the type of politics we have just seen exemplified by the hon. member for Vryheid, is deplorable. He reads out a statement which he knows has been denied and repudiated and he uses that statement as a weapon to attack this side of the House, knowing that this side of the House as a party has repudiated it, and then he goes on and accuses this side of the House of following a policy implied by that statement which would “onderploeg die Afrikaner”. In other words he, in the name of his party, of which he is a whip, has made it clear that what is more important for him is the language which a man speaks than the future of White civilization in South Africa. It is more important to him that a man can speak a particular language than that the White man should be strengthened in South Africa and his civilization protected. That is his admission in the name of the Nationalist Party. He says he would rather a man were not brought into this country than upset the balance between our language groups. That, Mr. Chairman, is there for the world and for the people of South Africa to see. May I ask the Minister of Immigration whether he agrees that he will not allow immigrants into this country which might upset the language ratio in South Africa, whether he will keep out English-speaking immigrants as the hon. member for Vryheid, a Whip of his party, suggested.

I never said anything of the kind.

He said that the immigrants must not upset the balance between the language groups in South Africa. The policy of the Nationalist Party is to preserve the language ratio.

I never spoke about languages.

The hon. member referred to our racial groups. He referred to the Afrikaners, the descendants of Hollanders and the French.

And the Germans.

He did not mention the Germans. But the point is that we want the hon. the Minister of Immigration to deal with this matter. We want to know from him whether he tests a man’s right to come to this country as a White man, or as a man coming from a particular racial group? What is more important to South Africa, what is more important to this Government? To South Africa it is to have White immigrants and to the Government it is more important that you should test a man by his country of origin. In other words, they are not prepared to accept that people can become South Africans. They are not prepared to accept that an immigrant can become as good a South African or a better South African than a home-born South African. [Time limit.]

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, usually reveals a tendency to reduce the level of debate to such an extent that when he has concluded his speech, nobody can follow him up. I wish to say at once that we had hoped that this debate would have been kept outside politics in view of the fact that we as the Whites in South Africa, on both sides of the House, certainly feel the need to attract immigrants to our country and thereby preserve and strengthen our White civilization. I had hoped that the hon. members would have been able to withstand the temptation of trying to make political capital out of this matter. But unfortunately they have such a guilty conscience in regard to their own background and their own deeds in the past, that they could not resist the temptation to look for us behind the door also. I do not wish to return to the words of the hon. member for Hillbrow, but I am going to try to show, from the history of the United Party and the attitude it has adopted, that they had the very clear intention that the Afrikaner had to be ploughed under. I want to test their own past and by reference to it adduce the proof. In the first place I am quoting from the Natal Mercury of the 11 February 1953. The speaker was Mr. Piet Groenewald who at the time was M.E.C. in Natal and at present is a Senator of the United Party. I quote from the Natal Mercury—

But that is not the worst. I want to read the following statement. I quote from the British African Monthly of March 1949, in which I have found the following words—

That is a quotation from a leader in the British African Monthly of March 1949, after the general election in 1948 when they began to look for reasons why they had been beaten in the election. But figures and deeds speak much more clearly than words, and I should like to quote some statistics now. In the year 1946, 7,400 immigrants came from Great Britain to South Africa, 200 from the Netherlands, 27 from Belgium and 1 from Germany. That is to say, 7,400 from Great Britain in comparison with 228 from the countries of origin of the Afrikaner nation. In 1947 the struggle was in full swing, and then they had 27,604 immigrants from Great Britain, 1,006 from the Netherlands, 119 from Belgium and 28 from Germany. Number three: In 1948 25,513 came from Great Britain, 2,700 from the Netherlands, 13 from Belgium and 12 from Germany.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. The hon. members here in front of us are making so much noise that we cannot hear what the hon. member for Randfontein is saying.

If these statistics do not show that the United Party deliberately tried to draw immigrants from Great Britain in order to plough under the Afrikaans-speaking people, then I do not know what statistics we should quote. But, Mr. Chairman, let me take another point. The policy of selective immigration was the policy of the late Gen. Smuts. I quote from Hansard of the 21 March 1946, col. 4034. Gen. Smuts had been attacked as Prime Minister under the External Affairs Vote in regard to immigration, and these were the words of the Prime Minister on that date—

And the date was 21 March 1946—

But then suddenly the new policy came into being, and the new point of view that there was a danger that they could lose seats and could lose the Government, and they then launched this tremendous immigration scheme. On 14 August 1946, a mere five months after General Smuts had said: “at the moment our country has no great absorption capacity for immigrants”, General Smuts said at Pretoria, according to a report in the Cape Argus of 14 August 1946—

He proceeds—

In other words, this line of thought is clear proof to us that immigrants had to be brought in deliberately to plough under the Afrikaner. But I want to return, not to the United Party, but I wish to come to our own party for a while, and to the argument that we have now undergone a change of policy in regard to immigration. I am quoting from the Programme of Principles of the National Party, and the date I have here is 1937. What is the attitude of the party regarding immigration?—

Have the United Party any complaint against this statement? That was our policy in 1937, and since then that policy has never been changed. The policy of this Minister at the moment is identically similar. Selective immigration, desirable persons, people capable of assimilation with the White population, people who will not reduce our standard of living and moral level, people who will not come here to subvert South Africa or what have you. Mr. Chairman, I wish to state very clearly that this Government and this party have always maintained the good attitude in regard to immigration, namely that one should open the tap and reasonably fill the bucket until you can see it is full. The United Party adopted the attitude to open the tap full-steam, to get a tremendous effervescence with all the concomitant foam, so that the bucket overflowed, instead of bringing immigrants here in an organized and systematic manner.

But come, let us look at the countries that have had so many immigrants, such as Australia for instance. What are they saying about the immigrants they got? I am quoting from the Sunday Telegraph of 22 May, 1955—

This is what the Australians say about their immigrants …

Are these the people they want us to throw open our doors to? The fact of the matter is that we cannot do so and dare not do so, for we have a duty towards White South Africa and posterity. I quote from the Cape Argus of 7 February 1956—

Mr. Chairman, I am asking again: Can we in South Africa, in view of the situation we have in regard to Bantu and Whites, afford to bring “illiterates and semi-illiterates” here? Will they be able to compete with the Bantu whose work they will have to do? Can they live on the level on which the Bantu is living and on the wage on which the Bantu is living, and then still maintain a White standard of living?

I wish to conclude with this thought, that the National Party has always been balanced in respect of its immigration policy. It has never been out to use it for political objectives, as the United Party wishes to do. It has always been prepared to reinforce the White population in that manner, with people who can assimilate with the Whites and who will not constitute a danger to our own people. I want to ask the Minister to proceed on that road. It is the only right road. Do not abuse the immigrant for political gain.

The hon. member for Randfontein (Dr. Mulder) concluded his speech by quoting a report that appeared in the Cape Argus in 1956, in which was said who were the people who were the last 100,000 immigrants that went to Australia. He says the reporter said that those last 100,000 were “illiterates and semi-illiterates”. If that was the position in 1956, what is the position now in 1962? What is a country such as South Africa going to get now, if a country such as Australia in 1956 already, with its last large number of immigrants, got “illiterates and semi-illiterates”? What prospect has this hon. Minister then of getting desirable immigrants in this year 1962, while countries such as Australia in 1956 already had to be satisfied with “illiterates and semi-illiterates?

May I ask a question?

No, I first want to dispose of the hon. member. We are extremely sorry for the hon. the Minister of Immigration. He will now have to try his best, but for 14 years his Government has not done a thing. Now they come along with that old argument that takes us back to the policy of the United Party, and they say that in our time the policy was to plough the Afrikaners under. What is the position to-day? Even under this Government, where there are very few immigrants indeed, who comprise most of those people? They are still always people coming from the United Kingdom.

That shows we have no political motive.

That may be so, but then this Government also is ploughing the Afrikaner under. For the vast majority of the immigrants that are still coming to South Africa, come from the United Kingdom. I say I am sorry for the hon. the Minister. We on this side wish to congratulate him and hope that he will be able to do the best for South Africa, that he will get the most immigrants. But I hope he will not go so far as to take with him the Hansard report of the hon. member for Randfontein, to go and tell the people over there what type of immigrant other countries who applied immigration got. No, if the hon. the Minister were to do that, I do not believe he will be able to bring more White people to South Africa.

But what is the position actually? This Government’s policy is the only factor that has been the cause of us being unable to get people to come to South Africa. It is the consequence of the Government’s policy that we are to-day standing alone in the outside world. I should like to read to the hon. the Minister what Dr. Van Rhyn said. He was the High Commissioner of this country in England, and when he returned to South Africa on 25 November 1960, he granted a Press interview to the Burger, in which he says the following—

Dr. Van Rhyn proceeds and says—

Nobody overseas is interested in what the Opposition says in any country. They are interested in the actions and words of the Government that is in power. It is the policy of this Government during the past 14 years that has been the cause of South Africa standing alone. Unless we change this direction or this picture of South Africa, unless we deliberately alter that picture, I cannot see how we are going to get immigrants. And, Mr. Chairman, it will not depend on us on this side. No, it is the party in power, they who are holding the reins, who are the people who will have to be exceptionally careful what they say, and who will have to be very circumspect in their deeds. That party will have to remember that if they wish to attract people to South Africa, they will have to aim, in every session of Parliament we have in future, only at maintaining and strengthening the good name of South Africa overseas. A prospective immigrant wants to know that there will not only be a future for him and his children in finding work. He also wants to know that he is going to a country where there is peace and unity. He wants to see that there is a Government in power that will see to it that the best use is made of the development of our natural resources. That is why, Mr. Chairman, I am so pleased, and I wish to congratulate the hon. the Minister that he has told us this afternoon how he proposes to proceed to put South Africa’s name overseas—yes, old United Party policy. He did not tell us that he is going to put the Government’s policy. No, Mr. Chairman, what did he say he was going to do? He said: I am going to show the people overseas photographs, films, publications, to show them what a wonderful country South Africa is. He did not say he is going to preach the Government’s policy. If that is his attitude, that he is going to sell South Africa to countries overseas, then I believe he will be successful in getting the immigrants. But he should not go and tell people overseas and the prospective immigrants what type of host we have here in the form of the Government, for if he tells them what kind of host we have, he will not be able to get anybody to come to the party of South Africa. One fault I have to find with the hon. the Minister is this. He said that he will apply immigration as long as it is in the interests of South Africa, as long as we do not have large-scale unemployment—“depending on the economic development of South Africa But what does the hon. the Deputy Minister of Labour say? He was addressing the congress of the South African Iron and Steel Industry Association in Pretoria and he said, according to the Burger of 9 June 1960-

The hon. the Minister says he will not apply immigration if we have unemployment, but his hon. Deputy Minister says, and he quotes the instance of Australia—

He says this also—

Here we already have a difference in policy. We have the hon. the Minister who says he will not apply immigration when we have unemployment; but the hon. Deputy Minister says, and he mentions the examples of America and Canada, that they indeed apply immigration in the very times when unemployment has assumed disquieting dimensions with them. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (West) (Mr. Streicher) for his good wishes. I can assure him that I will not only put the case of South Africa but I will also put the case of the Government. I want to tell the hon. member that the case of the Government is well known; it is particularly well known to Kenya. We are getting immigrants from Kenya at the rate of 100 a month.

Refugees.

The hon. member who interrupted me says that the people from Kenya are refugees.

The hon. member for the Transkeian Territories (Mr. Hughes) put certain questions to me. He made a point of the fact that the immigration policy before 1948, which was the United Party policy, was the policy which this Government should have followed. I want to tell him that the immigration policy of the United Party in 1948 was no different from the policy of the present Government, except that the policy of the present Government is a State-aided policy, whereas the policy of the United Party was not a State-aided policy. Before 1948 no payments were made to immigrants.

It was not necessary.

But they had to comply with the regulations which were framed under the Aliens Act of 1937, in the same way as immigrants to-day have to comply with those regulations. So that immigrants could not come into South Africa in their hundreds and thousands and millions unless they could comply with those regulations, which are exactly the same to-day as they were in 1948.

Why did they stop coming in?

Let me tell hon. members of the Committee that these qualifications still apply to-day. I have them here. They were framed under the Act of 1937. They must be able to read and write at least one European language; they must have no criminal convictions; they must be free from certain diseases, such as tuberculosis and mental afflictions and they must be able to maintain themselves and their families so as not to become a burden on the State. Those regulations were in force then and those regulations are still in force to-day. It is still the same policy.

Why was the Union-Castle contract cancelled?

I have no information about that. All I am saying is that in those days there was no State-aided immigration. I have explained to this Committee to-day how far the State is aiding immigration. That is the policy I am pursuing; that is the policy of the Government and I hope it will be successful. I hope hon. members on the Opposition side will assist us in this immigration scheme. It is no use going back to the past; the past is done with. It is my job to get immigrants to come to South Africa. I think hon. members opposite would be serving their country much better if they assisted us in this immigration scheme so that we can get White settlers into South Africa. That is my point of view.

We will vote twice the amount of money if it is necessary.

I think the State-aided scheme is a good scheme. I have given the details of it. I am sure that immigrants overseas will be attracted by what is being offered. All I can say is that it is no use hon. members opposite saying that immigrants will not come to South Africa on account of certain policies; that they do not like South Africa. That is no incentive to immigrants when they read that. They say: “What is the use of going to a country like South Africa?”

Must we not criticize the Government?

No, I am saying that you must not criticize the Government. Our immigration policy is a good policy, it is State-aided, and I appeal to hon. members to assist us to make the scheme a successful one.

Before the Minister sits down will he answer a question? I take it from what the hon. the Minister has just said that he disagrees with hon. members on that side? The Minister says that the policy in relation to immigrants, the searching for and the screening of immigrants, is no different now from what it was in 1948?

I have already said that our policy is still a scheme of immigration on a selective basis.

Vote put and agreed to.

On Vote No. 43,—“Coloured Affairs”, R11,562,000,

May I ask for the privilege of the half hour? I do not intend devoting the limited time at my disposal to discussing the Government’s policy of apartheid as applied to the Coloured people. The attitude of my colleagues and myself towards the policy of the Government in regard to the Coloured people is well known. And I do not think any good purpose will be served in the course of this debate to continue with these discussions which up to now have not been very fruitful. We feel strongly, Mr. Chairman, that the existing racial discrimination against our Coloured people is not justified. We have made that position perfectly clear time and again in this House. Nothing that the hon. Minister can say can justify, in our view, this racial discrimination which this Government is practising against the Coloured people of this country. Nothing that the Minister can say can justify the Government’s attitude as enunciated by the Prime Minister, that these Coloured people are not nationals of their own country. I say, therefore, that I do not propose to have a re-hash of those discussions.

I wish to avail myself of this opportunity of discussing with the hon. the Minister certain matters which have arisen as a result of the Government’s policy and which I think require clarification. The Council for Coloured Affairs recently published—whether they did so with the Minister’s permission or not, I do not know—a number of resolutions which they passed unanimously calling upon the Government to implement many aspects of the Government’s policy towards the Coloured people. I think that it is high time that the Government responded to those resolutions and that it is high time that the country know what the Government’s attitude is towards those resolutions. I want to say that in discussing these resolutions I do not wish to give to the Council for Coloured Affairs a greater status than they in fact hold. Under the existing laws this Council is the only official body which, as far as the Government is concerned, acts as a liaison between the Coloured people and the Government. In those circumstances, Sir, it is only fair and correct that the resolutions which have been passed unanimously by that Council should receive the attention of the responsible Government Department and should be ventilated whenever possible in public. I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to discuss some of these resolutions.

One of the resolutions which this Council of Coloured Affairs passed was a resolution to the effect that Coloured people should be represented on some of the boards, some of the important boards, established by the Government, boards which deal primarily with the affairs and interests of the Coloured people. The boards which they enumerated in the course of this resolution were boards such as the Group Areas Board, the Group Areas Development Board, the Wage Board and the Coloured Development Corporation. I mention those as examples, Sir, of the type of board which the Council had in mind upon which they suggested very earnestly that there should be Coloured representation. As I say, Sir, without wishing to give any greater status to this Council than they are really entitled to, I feel—and in this I am supported by my colleagues—that where the resolutions of this Council are reasonable and in the interests of the public, they should receive the support of the Coloured representatives in this House. My colleagues and I are prepared where we are acquainted with such reasonable resolutions, to give them our support and backing. I regard this resolution coming from the Council of Coloured Affairs as a very reasonable one. My colleagues and I wish to support that resolution. That resolution urged the Government to agree that in respect of these boards which concern vitally the well-being of the Coloured people, these people should have direct representation on those boards. I want to urge the hon. the Minister to give favourable consideration to that request. I suggest, Sir, that it is a justifiable request and one which merits the earnest consideration of the hon. the Minister and his Department. As I see it, it will have the effect of winning a greater measure of goodwill from our Coloured people. I want to take as an example the Group Areas Board which is one of the boards mentioned in this resolution. We know from experience that the Group Areas Board occupies, I suppose, three-quarters of its time in dealing with the interests and the properties of Coloured people. In the Cape particularly—the hon. the Minister will agree with me—the Board’s time is taken almost exclusively in dealing with the interests and the affairs of the Coloured people.

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

When Business was suspended, I was dealing with some resolutions that the Council for Coloured Affairs had unanimously passed and which I suggested called for the careful consideration of the Minister. The first resolution I dealt with was the one dealing with Coloured people having direct representation on the various boards established by the Government. This resolution stated that in respect of the boards like the Group Areas Board and the Group Areas Development Board and the Wage Board and the Coloured Development Corporation, the Coloureds should have some direct representation. I was saying that my colleagues and I supported these resolutions, not because they emanated from the Council for Coloured Affairs merely, but because we felt that this was something that was worthy of the earnest consideration of the Government. I want to take the example of the Group Areas Board, which dealt almost exclusively in the Cape with the position of the Coloured people.

But you cannot deal with that now.

No, but I want to discuss the general policy and I want to suggest to the Minister that by his acceding to this request of the Council to have direct representation on the Group Areas Board, he will do a great deal to win over the goodwill and cooperation of the Coloured people. They are, after all, the people who are principally affected by the working of this Board, and I suggest that it is not asking too much from the Minister to give favourable consideration to their request. The same remarks apply to the representation they ask should be given to them on the Group Areas Development Board. There again, if they had the opportunity of having their own Coloured leaders appointed in consultation with the Minister on those boards …

Order! The hon. member can discuss that point more conveniently under the next Vote, Community Development.

I am trying to avoid duplication, and I am talking generally on the policy of the Government with regard to the Coloured people, and I am urging that the Minister should give favourable consideration to this resolution which may very well help to bridge the gulf that exists between the Coloured community and the Government at the moment.

I want to pass on now to another resolution and deal with the suggestion made that in regard to the Wage Board, if the Minister were to seek the co-operation of his colleagues in the Cabinet and give representation to the Coloureds on the Wage Board, a great deal of the ill-feeling which exists between a section of the Coloureds and the Government would be eliminated. I have already, during the course of this Session, spoken to the Minister in regard to the Coloured Development Corporation. There, too, without criticizing at all the members of the Board of that Corporation, I am of the firm opinion that if the Minister had seen his way clear to appointing some of the Coloured leaders to that Board, it would have helped towards the smoother working of that Corporation.

Another resolution which was passed by the Council for Coloured Affairs unanimously, and to which my colleagues and I wish to subscribe and to which we want to give our full support, is the resolution appealing to the Government to provide more jobs for Coloured people in Government Departments. There was a resolution unanimously passed by the Council in which it was urged that more jobs for the Coloured people should be provided in the postal services, the Railway service, in the hospital services and municipal services, for the Coloured people, and particularly in respect of the areas predominantly occupied by Coloureds. Surely this is a resolution which should be supported by the Government. I know the Minister will tell us that the Government has already done a great deal to provide employment for Coloured people in these various Governmental services. I want to say immediately that I accept that position, that the Government has done a fair amount in this regard, but I do want to say that the Minister must appreciate that there are very few avenues of employment open to the Coloured people. Of absolute necessity these Coloured people have to depend on the goodwill of the Government to obtain employment for them. I am sure that this House was shocked to hear yesterday from the hon. the Minister of Labour that there had been a tremendous increase in Coloured unemployment in this country. It is no use the Minister shaking his head, because the figures speak for themselves. The Minister of Labour indicated that unfortunately that was the position. The Coloured people have implored the Government through their own Council, which is their only mouthpiece and their only liaison between them and the Government, that the Government should do everything it possibly can to try to improve the employment situation for them in Governmental services and semi-Governmental services—particularly in areas which are predominantly occupied by the Coloured. I hope that the Minister will in the course of his reply come with some words of encouragement to the Coloureds in that regard. There is nothing that antagonizes the Coloured people more than the fact that a considerable number of them are out of employment. With the unfortunate prejudice that exists in this country, it is only to the Government and municipal institutions that the Coloureds can look to obtain employment. As far as this particular resolution is concerned, whereby they appeal to the Government to provide more jobs for the Coloureds, that resolution has the wholehearted support of my colleagues and myself, and I would urge the Minister to do everything he possibly can to accede to that request.

Another resolution which was unanimously passed by this Council and which merits the consideration of the Minister is the request that there should be equal pay for equal work done by Coloured people in Governmental and semi-Governmental services, and indeed, I want to say, throughout the whole of industry. I think that this is a reasonable request and my colleagues share my views in this regard. We feel that in administrative capacities in which the Coloured people are engaged in Governmental and semi-Governmental institutions, the principle of equal pay for equal work should be applied. I consider that there exists no justification at all for differentiation in pay given to the Coloured people as compared with the pay given to Whites doing the same job. I think the Minister can exercise his influence to ensure that in respect of similar services the Coloured people will receive compensation based on the principle of equal pay for equal work. During the course of the debate, when this matter was discussed in the Union Council for Coloured Affairs, there was a great deal of heated argument. It appears to me that there can be no justification at all for differentiating between the pay for Coloureds and Whites if they are doing the same job. I want to take the example of a White postman who delivers letters in a White area. Surely there can be no reason why that White postman should receive more pay for the same job than a Coloured postman who delivers letters in a Coloured area. I suggest that there can be no human reason why there should be that differentiation. I can mention another example, in respect of hospital attendants doing duty in a White hospital. Why should they receive more pay than a Coloured attendant doing duty in a Coloured hospital? After all, they are doing the same work, for their respective communities. I urge upon the Minister to give the most serious consideration possible to try to get the Government to agree to the principle that there should be equal pay for equal work in any institution where Coloureds are employed and where Whites are employed, and where they do the same type of work.

Has the hon. member got a Coloured servant working for him?

Yes, and I am very glad that the hon. member asked me that. I have had a Coloured servant working for me for many years and he gets paid as much as I would pay to a White servant. When I tell the House that this servant has been with me for 27 years, the hon. member will appreciate the fact that I have observed this rule that there should be equal pay for equal work. [Interjections.] But this is something which I want to try to keep on as high a level as possible in order to try to get the Government, in spite of its policy of apartheid, to try and deal as humanly as possible with these people who have a claim to be regarded as citizens of this country, despite the definition that the Government has given of “citizenship”. I am trying to urge that this principle of equal pay for equal work is something which the Government should accept, not only in respect of Governmental jobs, but also in respect of industry generally, and that if a man does a particular job of work, which is the same as the work done by a White man, he should get the same pay.

Do the patients pay the same fees?

In regard to Government-subsidized hospitals it does not matter whether they pay the same fees or not. In Government institutions and in the cause of humanity the Government pays a substantial subsidy to the Provincial Administrations for hospitals, and it does not matter two hoots whether the patients can pay the same fees or not. But if a man renders the same service and he has the responsibility of keeping his family and himself, there seems to be no reason why he should be differentiated against in the matter of pay if he does the same work as a White man. My plea to the Minister is to ensure that this is not done. He may have a difficult task because he is pioneering a new Department, and he may find it difficult to push through this point of view to his colleagues in the Cabinet, but I say that this is a responsibility which rests on the entire Cabinet to ensure, in the cause of humanity, that people who render similar service to their own communities and in their own areas should receive the same scale of pay.

Must we pay the Bantu the same salaries also?

I am only speaking now for the people whom I represent. But I will say this, that in the course of time we will be forced to pay the Bantu the same wages.

Forced by whom?

By the general state of affairs. If they render services to their own community, there seems to be no reason why they should not be paid the same wages. I can see no reason at all, from the human point of view, why there can be this differentiation in the scale of pay, and why a Coloured man who does work for his own people in his own area should be paid less than a White man who does similar work for his own people, particularly if it is the wish of the Minister to uplift the Coloured people. He wants to bring the Coloured people to a position where they can stand on their own feet economically and make progress as a community on their own, but surely he cannot do that unless he is prepared to give them economic assistance.

Another resolution which was passed by the Council which commends itself to me, and which I urge the Minister to accept, is that the debates of this Council should be held in public and that the Press should not be excluded. I honestly cannot understand the Minister’s reluctance in allowing the Press to attend these debates. Sir, I hold no brief at all for the Coloured Council as it exists at present, but the fact remains that it is the only recognized body which acts as the liaison between the Coloured community and the Government. The Minister cannot tell me of any other official, recognized Coloured body, which acts as liaison. This is the only one. In terms of our statutes, it is intended that that body should be the liaison between the Government and the Coloured people. Now, we know the circumstances under which this Council was appointed and I have no desire at all to become involved in an argument in regard to this matter. The fact remains that there is a Council in existence and that in terms of the law that Council is the only liaison between the Coloureds and the Government. But I cannot understand why they should be precluded from holding their debates in public, and why the Press should be precluded. I feel that if the Minister can see his way clear to allow their debates to take place in public, where the general community of the Coloureds can hear what is being urged on their behalf … [Interjections.] Forget about the Press now. Our Press, by and large, with certain exceptions, are very fair. They could indicate to the Coloured community as a whole what their representatives in the Council are urging on their behalf, and if they can tell the Coloured community what the Secretary for Coloured Affaire, one of their staunch friends, is urging on their behalf, it will do a tremendous amount of good to bring about closer liaison between the Coloureds and the Government. It will help to bridge the unfortunate gulf that exists between the Coloureds and the Government. I would strongly urge on the Minister to do whatever he can, and I think the decision rests with him. If the Minister would take a broad view and say to the Union Council that from now on their deliberations will take place in public and that the Press will be admitted and that there can be a free disclosure to the Coloured public of the deliberations of the Council, he will do a great deal to achieve closer liaison between the Council and the Government and to bridge this unfortunate gulf which exists. I therefore urge upon the Minister to accept this resolution as an earnest request by the Coloured community. I am sure the Minister will realize that it is in the interest of the country that we should win over as much as possible the goodwill and cooperation of the Coloured community. This afternoon we listened to a debate on immigration, and there was a heated discussion as to whether or not we should embark upon a campaign of immigration to get immigrants. Here we have the opportunity of winning over 1,500,000 potential immigrants if the Government were prepared to increase the status of the Coloured people and bring them to the status of the White people. That will immediately strengthen our position vis-à-vis the Bantu, from 3,500,000 to 5,000,000. Here I cannot help repeating what has been said by me and my colleagues so many times in this House. There is no reason at all why that policy should not be adopted. These people are, after all, a Western group in every respect, culturally and in every way, also in language and religion. They are part and parcel of the White people of this country, and it seems absurd that these people should not be put on the same footing as the White people. Here is an opportunity of dealing with the situation, if the Minister were able and prepared to take the bold step of raising the status, the economic status, of these people to that of the Whites. [Time limit.]

Time will not permit me to reply to all the arguments raised by the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg), but the hon. member has advanced a long way. It was very interesting to hear this evening that he is now giving so much recognition to the Union Coloured Council. I should like to raise a matter which in my view is of real importance to the country as a whole and to the Cape in particular, namely, Coloured Education. I wish to ask whether the time has not arrived for us to have clarity on this matter. The Minister of Finance, as leader of the National Party in the Cape, in 1956 already appointed a Committee to go into this matter. It was my privilege to serve on that Committee with the hon. the Minister, who reported to the Party Congress in that same year still.

On a point of order, has Coloured Education any relation to this Vote?

Order! Will the hon. the Minister give us information on this point?

Higher Education already falls under the Department, as well as Special and Vocational Education.

I am discussing a matter of policy, and education is a matter of policy. As a result of that report, it was decided that negotiations should take place on Government level for the taking over of Coloured Education, and it was then adopted as Government Party policy, approved by our Congress. The next year, 1957, a motion was introduced in the Provincial Council as follows—

That motion was passed by the Provincial Council in the Cape. In the meantime, with the passing of the years, the sub-Department of Coloured Affairs has become a fully-fledged Department, with a Minister in charge. As the Minister has just said, technical education, vocational education, special education, and higher education in the transfer of the University College of the Western Cape—all of these fall under the Department of Coloured Affairs already. Now I wish to say that it is generally admitted that this new arrangement is highly satisfactory, but I say the time has arrived for a decision to be taken on what should be done regarding Coloured Education. In December 1961, the Prime Minister stated in Cape Town—

The Prime Minister adumbrated an Executive Council of four members, of whom one member would be responsible in the future for Coloured Education. He announced a ten year plan. If that programme has to be carried out, there dare not be any further delay in the taking over of Coloured Education by the Government of the Republic.

But I have just read a motion that was adopted by the Provincial Council in 1957, and it was my privilege to introduce that motion, but now in 1962, on 15 May, the Cape Provincial Council was in Session again, and Mr. Venter, M.E.C., moved, seconded by Mr. A. J. van der Merwe—

In this resolution of last month, it is asked that effect be given to the resolution of 1957, or that a subsidy of 80 per cent be paid. As I have said already, there are 290,000 Coloured children at school, and that without compulsory education. My own estimate is that at the present time at least R15,000,000 is spent on Coloured Education in the Cape. The Central Government contributes on a rand for rand basis and the amount the Province itself raise for Coloured Education is between R7,500,000 and R8,000,000. The fact of the matter is that the Cape can no longer afford it. But as you see, Sir, it is more than five years that this matter has been discussed. The other provinces are in difficulties at the present time. They are waiting for an announcement of what has been adopted as its policy by the party and the Government, and particularly after the announcement made by the Prime Minister last year. I think the Coloureds are also looking forward with anticipation to the taking-over, particularly to what the hon. the Prime Minister has envisaged, namely that they will have a say in Coloured Education. Mr. Chairman, I wish to say this here this evening: The Provincial Council of the Cape Province and the Provincial Department of Education have a gigantic task to fulfil. But the fact remains that the financial liability has become too great for the Province. I think the time has arrived for the Government to state its attitude on this matter. If this matter drags on any longer, the other provinces are going to land financially, in the future, exactly where the Cape Province is to-day. That is why, Mr. Chairman, I have the right to ask the Government, through the Minister, to make a statement on this matter—what the Government proposes to do about Coloured Education. [Time limit.]

I was glad to hear the obviously inspired speech by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden) on the question of Coloured education in this country, and the suggestion which he made in the course of his speech that Coloured education should be transferred to the Department of Coloured Affairs. I think I would like to follow on what the hon. member for Malmesbury has said in that regard, so that this Committee will know the full facts. I should like to say that he was perfectly correct when he said that the hon. the Prime Minister, during the course of an address which he gave to the Coloured Council, dealt with the question of Coloured education. This was what the hon. the Prime Minister said on that occasion—

I am using the exact words used by the hon. the Prime Minister on that very notable occasion. He went on to say this—

Then he went on to say—

This grandiose scheme submitted by the hon. the Prime Minister to the Coloured Council received a great deal of publicity throughout the length and breadth of this country. It received most certainly the most earnest consideration of the Union Council who felt that this statement by the hon. the Prime Minister was a serious statement on the part of the Government to try to ameliorate the unfortunate circumstances and conditions which exist in regard to Coloured education by bringing it under the control of the Coloured Affairs Department. This aspect was considered very, very fully by the Union Council on several occasions. The question of the possible transfer of the control of Coloured education from the various provincial administrations to the Department of Coloured Affairs received their very earnest consideration on several occasions. The Council felt after the fullest possible consideration that this transfer would only be justified and could only be justified if certain large-scale improvements were brought about by that transfer. They were motivated, I feel, by the interests of the Coloured people entirely and by the Coloured children whom we are all seeking to educate. They say that this grandiose scheme of the transfer of Coloured education to the Coloured Affairs Department as enunciated by the hon. the Prime Minister could only be justified if the Government were prepared to subscribe to certain basic principles. I now want to put to the hon. the Minister these basic principles. And I hope that during the course of his reply this evening he will tell us whether he is prepared to abide by those basic principles. One of those basic principles that the Coloured Council urged if there were to be a transfer of Coloured education to the control of the Coloured Affairs Department was this: There should be compulsory education on the same basis as applied to White children. I want to ask the hon. the Minister what his policy is in regard to that. I am glad that the hon. member for Malmesbury has raised this point, because this is one of the basic principles enunciated by the Coloured Council as a condition precedent to the transfer of Coloured education to the Coloured Affairs Department. That is that there should be compulsory education on the same basis as applied to White children. I would like the hon. the Minister, in the course of his reply to this Committee, to tell us whether he and his Government are prepared to subscribe to that principle. It is a basic principle, Sir; it is a principle which is supported by my colleagues and myself and it is a principle which on every human ground would receive the approbation of every well-disposed citizen in this country; that is that compulsory education as applied to the White children should also be applied on the same basis to the Coloured children.

The next principle which should be a sine qua non, according to the Council, if Coloured education is to be transferred to the Department of Coloured Affairs, is that there should be salary adjustments; salary adjustments in terms of which a Coloured teacher and a Coloured principal will receive the same scale of pay as a European teacher and a European principal doing the same work in a European school. They say that that should be a condition precedent to the transfer of this educational system from the provincial administrations to the Coloured Affairs Department.

They go on to say that another condition precedent should be that there should be no curtailment of syllabuses. In other words, the syllabus which applies to European children should also apply to Coloured children. I urge the hon. the Minister to tell us whether he is prepared to accept that principle. I think it will have a wonderful effect upon the relationship between the Coloureds and the Europeans in this country if the hon. the Minister were to say to-night in the course of his reply that he and his Government were prepared to accept this principle that there should be no curtailment of syllabuses as compared between the White children and the Coloured children.

Another condition under which they would be prepared to accept this transfer was that there should be the creation of an inspectorate from among the Coloured teaching staff. At present, Mr. Chairman, as you know, the inspectorate consists of European inspectors. They say that if they are going to have an exclusively Coloured educational system under the control of the Coloured Affairs Department, there should be a Coloured teaching staff from which the inspectorate should be selected. I should like to learn from the hon. the Minister whether he and his Government are prepared to accept that as a basic principle and as a condition precedent to this transfer.

Then they go on to say that there is another condition precedent namely the extension and the improvement of medical services. In other words. Sir, the same medical services which exist in respect of White children should be available to Coloured children, and whenever there is an extension of those medical services, whenever there is an improvement in those medical services as far as White children are concerned, those same extensions and improvements should apply to the Coloured children. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to accept that as one of the conditions precedent to this transfer of Coloured education to the Coloured Affairs Department.

They go on to say, as another condition precedent, that there should be an extension of school hostel facilities. In other words, the same hostel facilities which are available to White children in relation to schools falling under governmental control, should also be available to Coloured children.

Sir, these are basic principles which the Union Council—this is not me speaking now; I am giving to the Committee the views of the Union Council, the Government’s own council—has urged as conditions precedent before they are prepared to concede the principle of transferring Coloured education from the provincial administrations to the Coloured Affairs Department. [Time limit.]

Mr. Chairman, I did not intend to participate in the debate so early, but I think that in view of what the previous speaker has said, I should say a few words. I want to start off by referring to what the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) said at the commencement of his speech. I want to thank him for his attitude; it was interesting to note that only in passing he referred to “the existing discrimination is not justified”. He also said in passing “that the Coloured people should be given the same status as the Europeans The hon. member did not dwell on that for long, and I say I wish to thank him for that. It is in screaming contrast to what we have already experienced here. I think there is an explanation for that. I think the explanation is that the hon. member himself is deeply impressed by the extent of the support the Coloured people themselves are giving to the Government’s declared policy. The growing support cannot escape the attention of the hon. member for Peninsula. He is deeply under the impression of it. Let me tell him this, that I am not trying to be funny, but there is an increasing feeling of support among the Coloured population in regard to the socio-economic programme this Government is now carrying out.

Do they accept it?

They accept it. I think that is the explanation why a prominent representative of the Coloured people, such as the hon. member, has been impressed by it. That then also explains his attitude here to-night, of trying to adopt a more positive approach and to avoid the negative. I want to thank him for that. The hon. member—and I am not saying this in a spirit of reproach; I am saying this in a spirit of thankfulness—a few years ago would not even take notice of the Union Council. To-night he has referred to the Union Council. That is great progress already, and I am grateful to him for it. Now the hon. member has made himself guilty of a wrong quotation which I cannot leave intact. He said, inter alia, “the Prime Minister said the Coloureds were not nationals in their own country”. I do not wish to do the hon. member an injustice. I wish to give him an opportunity to say whether I am quoting him correctly. I understand he said that “the Prime Minister said the Coloureds were not nationals in their own country You used the word “nationals”, did you not?

Yes.

Now, Mr. Chairman, let me say this: It is a completely wrong impression of what the Prime Minister has said.

It was a nonsensical statement on the part of the Prime Minister.

The hon. member will get his opportunity to talk. I want to deny that the Prime Minister ever said anything of the kind. What the Prime Minister did in fact say, is this, and in that respect I am four-square behind him. The Prime Minister said this—in fact he said it in this House—that the Coloureds are to-day regarded as South African citizens, but they do not belong to the White nation of South Africa. I agree 100 per cent with him. The Coloureds are a separate group. They may be a Western group—I have already said this in public—but the Coloureds do not belong to the White nation. This Government’s policy is indeed aimed to arouse a realization of their own value among the Coloured people, so that they may develop an awareness of themselves and a pride in themselves. But the Prime Minister has never used the words, and revealed that spirit the hon. member wanted to ascribe to him.

May I ask you a question?

No, I think the hon. member must give me an opportunity to state my case. What I am saying here is the attitude of the Prime Minister and I am in accord with it. The Prime Minister has on occasion gone further and said that there is a White nation in South Africa, and we hope that as a result of the process of growth we are setting in motion among the Coloured people, a Coloured nation will eventually emerge and that there will be a Bantu nation or various Bantu nations. But to speak in one breath of these groups as belonging to one nation, we reject because we reject a promiscuous mix-up and intermingling. I hope we shall not have a repetition of what the Prime Minister is supposed to have said in this manner.

The hon. member then referred to the “Council for Coloured Affairs and the resolutions they adopted. He wished to express the hope that the Minister would take notice of those resolutions”. Let me tell the hon. member in the first place that the Union Coloured Council is an advisory Council. As in the case of any other advisory body, they pass resolutions which are then dealt with on their merits within the national policy. And they are also with on their merits. I should like to give the hon. member a few examples. The hon. member has just quoted—and I wish to do the same—from a resolution adopted by the Union Council. Shortly after its establishment the Union Council adopted a resolution that the Land Bank ought to give certain forms of assistance to the rural Coloured farmers. It was brought to our attention by the Council and we in turn brought it to the attention of the Land Bank. [Interjections.] If the hon. members do not wish to listen to what I am saying, I shall not take the trouble to reply to them. If they regard these things as a joke, I shall leave them to their own deserts. The request of the Union Council was compiled with. If hon. members do not know how it is applied in practice, then it merely shows how ignorant they are about their own people. The Union Council adopted a second resolution that a technical high school should be established. That proposal of the Union Council was adopted. For the first time in the history of South Africa, under a National Government, a technical high school for Coloureds has been established, something they never had under a previous Government. I am merely mentioning the Council’s resolutions to which effect has been given. This Union Council also resolved to ask the Government to establish a technical college. The erection of such a technical college has already been approved in principle and the planning stage has commenced and the Council is in operation already. The hon. member referred to the salaries of Coloured civil servants. The Union Council has also adopted a resolution in that regard, and we were in sympathy with that resolution. The resolution taken by the Council in this regard has been referred to the Civil Service Commission and they are at the moment giving attention to it. And until such time as the Civil Service Commission has taken a decision upon the matter, I am not in a position to say anything further about it, except that at the moment it is receiving the attention of the Civil Service Commission. A further resolution was adopted by this Union Council, namely that the Government should proceed to the establishment of a Coloured Development Corporation, in order to assist the Coloured, especially in their own areas, in commerce and in the economic sphere. This request was complied with. The legislation was introduced and the Corporation is in operation. [Interjections.] Mr. Chairman, it is impossible …

Order! The hon. representatives of the Coloured group must please talk a little less loudly.

On a point of order. Sir, the interjections coming from this side of the House are being made by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker).

Order! Those hon. members are talking incessantly while the hon. the Minister is speaking.

It is not us; it is the hon. member for Fort Beaufort.

It is not true, Mr. Chairman; they are holding a caucus meeting.

Mr. Chairman, then the Union Council resolved further to request the Government to extend the powers of the Council. The Prime Minister subsequently met the Council and announced the Government’s policy in this regard. I can tell the hon. member that steps will be taken within the near future in consultation with the Council to begin acting in this direction. Then there was another resolution by this Council that heads of Department should attend the meetings of the Council at the invitation of the Council in order to discuss matters in which the Coloured people are interested. A series of such discussions have already been held with heads of Departments in respect of the interests of the Coloured people in the various Government Departments. Apart from the regular interviews I personally and other Ministers have with the Council, there are regular meetings with heads of Departments under several ministries. Then there was another resolution of the Council, and that is that liquor licences should be made available to Coloured in the Coloured areas, and should not end up in the hands of other people. Legislation in this connection is before Parliament at the moment. I mention these things to give the hon. member the assurance that regard is had to the resolutions adopted by the Council in fact. But when the Council adopts resolutions that are not in accord with the established policy of the country as approved on several occasions, those requests will not be complied with. I hope I am making myself very clear on this point: We shall not, merely because the Council adopts a certain resolution, simply accept that resolution. Where resolutions are in the interests of the Coloured people and are capable of being given effect to under the national policy, they will be taken into account. That is my reply to the hon. member.

Next the hon. member raised the question of representation of the Union Council on various other boards. Personally I do not think this is really the place to discuss the constitution of the Group Areas Board. But while the hon. member has raised it in a broad sense, I should like to tell him that steps have been taken to ensure the necessary consultation. In the first place the Union Council is subdivided into sub-committees. Those sub-committees concern themselves with particular facets dealing with authorities and institutions dealing with matters of policy in respect of the Coloured people. I personally have no objection to having such a committee in respect of Group Areas consulting with the Group Areas Board. But the Group Areas Board’s constitution is mainly such that it consists of lawyers, planners and other people who are experts in one respect or another. For that reason, therefore, we cannot comply with the request of the hon. member. But in the second place the attitude of the Government is very clear that it is opposed to mixed boards of this nature. And for that reason also this request cannot be acceded to. In the third place we intend, as Coloured Townships and Cities are established, and the Coloured rural areas assume their character which they must assume, more powers will be entrusted to the Union Council so that Coloureds will be enabled to take full control in respect of certain matters in those areas. That is the sense in which we have to assist the Coloureds to grow to a higher status, but certainly not by giving him representation in the manner urged by the hon. member here to-night. Then the hon. member also referred to the Development Corporation. I do not wish to deal with it again; I have already done so earlier this year; save only to say this: The Board of Directors of the Development Corporation are already considering the establishment of a body coupled to this Corporation that will come under Coloured control and which will receive guidance from the Coloured Corporation’s board of directors, to manage their own affairs economically. At this stage I am definitely opposed to having Coloured persons as members of the principal directorate. I think there are other ways of bringing them to maturity under the guidance of that directorate. We have constituted a directorate of extremely responsible people and I do not think we should now make the task of the corporation difficult by advocating this kind of thing that may prejudice the corporation in its good work. Then the hon. member asked “for more jobs for the Coloured people”. I do not think the hon. member should address that request to the Department of Coloured Affairs. I can quote him the whole establishment to show that of a total of 1,100 people who are directly and indirectly concerned with the activities of the Department of Coloured Affairs, the position is as follows: There are 602 Coloureds as against 539 Whites. If the hon. member refers to the establishment of the Head Office, he will find that there are 135 Whites as against 105 Coloureds. In other words, in the Department of Coloured Affairs much is already being done to assist the Coloureds in this respect.

Then the hon. member also in passing referred to “the tremendous increase in Coloured unemployment”. But this matter does not end there surely. Surely the Coloured people are not little angels in every respect. Let me say this here to-night, and I say it because I am imbued with sympathy for those people, that these people will have to improve their productivity. If they do not want to be unemployed, particularly in the Western Cape, the Coloured people will have to learn to a greater and greater extent to assume their obligations on the labour market. There are too many complaints that the Coloureds do not want to work over the week-ends; there are too many complaints that Coloureds do not want to work at night; there are too many complaints that you cannot entrust the Coloureds with responsible work. If it is expected that the Coloured man should assume his position on the labour market, he should show greater productivity and a greater sense of responsibility. We can help the Coloured in this respect not by pleading on his behalf but by teaching him and warning him. His salary will grow in accordance with the manner in which he increases his productivity, for it is a need of his that he should get a better salary. But surely one must earn one’s salary. I hope notice will be taken of this matter, we are meeting far too much with expressions of sympathy and references to the miserable conditions under which these people are living. I think the time has arrived for the Coloured people to realize that they also have a duty to the labour market.

That is a scandalous thing to say.

No, it is not a scandalous thing to say. I am not trying to catch votes; I must see to it that these people become worthy citizens of the country. These are complaints we are receiving from employers and I hope it will not be misconstrued. I know the Coloured leaders themselves are concerned about it. Then the hon. member asked me about Press representation at this Union Council. Let me say this: I am the first person who will say that I think the ideal position would be that the Press should be present at the meetings of the Union Council. I think is is no more than proper. But this Union Council is only in its beginnings. My attitude has always been that while it is in its beginnings, it should not be pestered by the kind of journalism we frequently get in South Africa. For if you were to subject this group of Coloured councillors to the same kind of malicious gossip and defamatory stories the Press sometimes serves, particularly the leftist elements among our newspapers, they will help to make a failure of this Council. As long as I am not convinced that this Council is immune to that type of thing, I shall advise them not to admit the Press. But it is a matter for them to decide; not for me. If they decide they want the Press, they may have the Press. But all I wish to say is this: I have always adopted this attitude that this Council will have to take the next step first, namely we should be dealing with a reorganized Council, and we should have a more representative Council, and once we have reached that stage we can admit the Press. I do not think we should subject that Council, while it is still only in its infant stage, to the kind of thing to which the Press will subject it. We do have this arrangement that nothing that happens in that Council is withheld from the outside world. Statements are issued by their Press committee on what discussions took place, it is also said who participated in those discussions. And if the Minister or Prime Minister or somebody else makes an important statement there, it is disseminated to the world. So the country is kept well informed of what happens there. However, I think it would be a sin, a sin against a body of which we wish to make something fine, if we were to subject it to this kind of pressure that it will be subjected to.

Then I would like to say something with reference to what the hon. member for Peninsula has just said and to which reference was also made by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden), namely the future of Coloured Education. Briefly the position is this: The Department of Coloured Affairs aims at the social and economic uplift of the Coloured people. To achieve that, it is necessary that services such as welfare, agricultural settlement and education as far as it affects the Coloured people, should be brought under one Administration. The Department of Coloured Affairs already controls the following matters: In respect of vocational education, as provided by Act 70 of 1955: That aspect of Coloured Education has been entrusted to the Minister of Coloured Affairs. I have already referred you to the progress that has been made in connection with the technical high school. The Department of Coloured Affairs also subsidizes at the present time a number of State aided vocational schools and extension classes for Coloureds. On the first April of this year technical education for Coloureds was also taken over by the Department. In Cape Town the classes were moved from a building in Roe-land Street immediately to better accommodation until such time as the new buildings for the technical college at Athlone will be ready. As regards special schools, the administration of the provisions of the Special Education Act, in terms of Act No. 9 of 1948, has similarly been entrusted to the Minister of Coloured Affairs, and it is being subsidized by the Department of Coloured Affairs. At the present moment there is the approved special schools for the deaf and blind already, and much progress has already been made with the provision of schools for other classes of Coloured Children such as epileptics, cerebral palsied children; we propose to establish a school for them, as well as for Coloureds and others, as authorized by the Act.

Then there is university training which, in terms of the Extension of University Training Act, as regards its administration, has been transferred to the Department of Coloured Affairs as from 1 April. There is the establishment of an agricultural vocational school for the training of Coloureds in the agricultural industry which has already been approved, and where we hope to be able to start the first courses at Kromme Rhee near Stellenbosch in the near future. Since 1958 the Department of Coloured Affairs has already administered one industrial school and three reform schools for Coloured boys and girls under the Children’s Act. In his positive development programme for the Coloured People, the Rt. Hon. the Prime Minister has directed i.a. that there should be an enquiry into the desirability to place all education for Coloureds, including the University College of the Western Cape, under the control of the Department of Coloured Affairs, so that Coloured parents, through their own boards and school committees and possibly their own Education Council, can have their share in the control thereof; an own Coloured inspectorate may be developed; attention may be given to the ideal of the application of compulsory attendance at school; Coloured officials may occupy the administrative positions concerned, as competent people become available; and the salary scales of Coloured teachers may be improved within such a new pattern.

Now I should like to announce that the Commission of Enquiry into the Financial Relations between the Central Government and the Provinces has been requested to submit an interim report on the financial implications of the transfer of education for Coloureds to the Department of Coloured Affairs. This Report has come to hand and has been considered by the Cabinet. The Cabinet also had at its disposal a report from a departmental committee on education for Coloureds. Furthermore, discussions were held with a number of interested bodies and a scheme for the transfer of all Coloured education to the Department of Coloured Affairs has been submitted to the Cabinet. The Government has now decided as follows—

In conclusion I should like to say, Mr. Chairman, that the Coloured people are given the assurance that there will be the closest co-operation between the Central Government and the provincial administrations to ensure that in the interim there will be no diminuation of services. Negotiations will also be conducted between the Department of Coloured Affairs and the provincial departments of Education in order to ensure that the transfer will occur without any prejudicial consequences.

The present arrangements in respect of state and church schools will be continued by the Department of Coloured Affairs, and if in course of time any changes appear to be desirable, negotiations with the bodies concerned will be conducted.

I should like to take this opportunity to assure the thousands of conscientious teachers, male and female, who are the spiritual leaders of their people, that their efforts will also be supported under the new order. And to the Coloured population as a whole I want to give the assurance that we shall endeavour to ensure that the system of education with the contemplated extension of services will in no way be inferior. The expansion and improvement of his education will create new opportunities for the Coloured people. As the head office of the Department of Coloured Affairs is established in Cape Town, it will be possible to administer locally the population group of whom 90 per cent reside in the Cape. As regards the other Provinces, I can give them the assurance that the necessary attention will be given to each by proper decentralization. Union control will facilitate the achievement of uniform syllabuses cast in the same mould as the existing syllabuses. The necessary linking up with education authorities will take place to maintain standards.

The new buildings of the University College of the Western Cape at Bellville, the establishment of a technical college and technical high school at Athlone, the establishment of an agricultural gymnasium at Kromme Rhee, as well as other projects the Department of Coloured Affairs is engaged on, are tangible proof of the Government’s realization that the educational facilities for Coloureds have to be expanded.

In conformity with the direction in regard to the takeover attention will also be given very soon to the ideal of the application of compulsory school attendance, the salaries of Coloured teachers and all matters for the promotion of the interests of the Coloured community and the education of their children. The Government wants to give the Coloured a larger share in the management of their own education. Along this road, if the Coloured will travel along it, he will play a progressively more important role in the framework of our racial pattern. We shall provide a portion of the means. It is for the Coloured to use it in the interests of his group and to achieve maturity through responsible conduct and self-help.

I am very sorry indeed that the hon. the Minister in his opening remarks in this debate saw fit to introduce a political flavour into our discussions, which I have tried to avoid. I endeavoured to keep this debate on a high level without any political approach at all, and I am very sorry indeed that the hon. the Minister saw fit to bring in some political aspects.

No, that was not the intention at all.

I feel I must reply to him. The hon. Minister may not have intended it in that way, but he brought up the statement in regard to the position of the Coloured people made by the hon. the Prime Minister. The hon. the Prime Minister’s exact words, which are reported in Hansard and which have been repeated in this House time and time again were, speaking of the Coloured people “When I speak of the South African nation, I speak only of the White people”. This, I say, has had a most devastating effect upon the Coloured people. They realize that according to that statement they are not regarded as nationals in their own country. That was the only aspect I intended to refer to when I spoke of the unfortunate statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister.

The hon. the Minister also went on to say that a very large number of Coloured people, a tremendous number to use his words, were now coming over towards the Nationalist way of thinking. He tried to condemn what I regarded was constructive criticism of the policy of the Minister’s department, and then he said that a tremendous number of Coloured people were coming over to the Nationalist way of thinking. The facts don’t support that at all, because in two elections for Coloured representatives in this House, the Nationalist Party tried to introduce Nationalist candidates and in every instance they failed ignominiously and lost their deposits.

Where did the Nationalist Party put up candidates?

What about Mr. le Roux? Was there not a candidate put up against the hon. member for Karoo and against the hon. member for Outeniqua? However, don’t let us quarrel about that, the fact remains that the Nationalist Party sponsored candidates who tried to get the support of the Coloured electorate, ignominiously failed. However, I do not want to become involved in political arguments. I want to treat this matter on the highest possible level to see whether we can achieve something for the Coloured people we represent. We have had enough of this bickering in this House between the Government and ourselves in regard to the policy of apartheid, and I want to see whether we can now go ahead together with a view to getting the best results for the people that we represent in this House.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. Minister also spoke of the fact that the Government’s proposal in regard to technical education was the result of an appeal made by the council. That is definitely not so. The hon. the Minister will bear with me when I say that in 1958 when the Coloured Representatives first came in here, a Bill was presented to this House, before the hon. the Minister even became Deputy Minister, and we in the exercise of our discretion, believing in the representations made by the Government at the time that technical education for the Coloured people would be improved if it came under the control of the Coloured Affairs department, supported that measure. We primarily tried to urge the Coloured people to accept that situation, but the Union Council had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it; in point of fact, their council was not even in existence at that time. We of our own volition, believing, as we still do, that it was in the interests of the Coloured people for technical education to fall under a sympathetic Coloured administration voted in favour of that Bill. My colleagues and I are very glad that we did that. I want to emphasize again that the Union Council had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with that decision.

The hon. the Minister also in the course of his reply dealt with the Union Council and spoke of the fact that until it is reorganized the Government could only accept certain of its recommendations, that the council was only sitting in an advisory capacity, and as such the Government was not prepared to accept holus-bolus the recommendations of the council. It is a great pity, of course, that the hon. the Minister said that, because this council has been stigmatized by Coloured people themselves throughout the length and breadth of this country as being a comic opera, and the hon. the Minister is doing nothing more than to perpetuate that stigma. We are trying to see whether we can’t give effect to some of the recommendations the council has made. Now the hon. the Minister suggests that until it is properly reorganized, he is not prepared

But I never said anything of the kind.

If the hon. the Minister will read the Hansard report of his speech, he will realize that he said that until it was reorganized he is not prepared to accept their recommendations and that he is not prepared to agree to free access to the Press.

No.

Mr. Chairman, the question of unemployment that I dealt with in my opening remarks, is a matter which is or grave importance to the Coloured people. I was merely quoting to the hon. the Minister the words expressed by his own colleague, the Minister of Labour, in a previous debate in this Committee when he pointed out that the incidence of Coloured unemployment was becoming very serious and that it was one of the worst years of unemployment that had been known in this country for a long time. I pointed out to the hon. the Minister that the Coloured people by and large can only receive further avenues of employment through Government institutions and semi-government institutions. Ordinarily, the industries and commerce generally absorb the maximum amount of Coloured labour that they can take. It is to the Government of this country and semi-government institutions that the Coloured people must look for avenues of employment, and all I did was to urge upon the hon. the Minister to do everything that he possibly can to try and expand these avenues so that as many Coloured people as possible can be taken into employment. It is that aspect that I think the hon. the Minister overlooked.

Now when the hon. the Minister dealt with the question of the transfer of Coloured education, it became quite obvious that I was correct when I said that the speech made by the hon. member for Malmesbury (Mr. van Staden) was an inspired speech to enable the hon. the Minister to come in with his government pronouncement in regard to Coloured education. Let me say that I am glad that the hon. the Minister has made that declaration, because it enables the country to realize that in 1963 it is the intention of the Government to have Coloured education transferred from provincial administrations to the Coloured Affairs Department. [Time limit.]

I am particularly pleased that the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg) has said that he did not wish to have this debate reduced to the level of political recriminations and that we should like to keep it on a high level, and that we ought to conduct it in the spirit of service to the interests the hon. members represent. However, I am sorry that shortly afterwards he made himself guilty of an allegation in regard to which the Minister has intimated that he misinterpreted him. I should also like to say that I am very pleased about the announcement by the hon. the Minister in regard to the taking over of Coloured Education. I am sure that it will be welcomed not only by the Provincial Council of the Cape, but also on the part of the Coloureds themselves. When I say that, I am thinking more specifically of the Coloureds there in certain areas of the constituency I represent. I know it is something they have looked forward to and which they will definitely welcome. They will be pleased that education is being transferred to the Department of Coloured Affairs. Some of the very responsible leaders there in that area, told me personally that the sooner it could take place, the happier they would be, and I am sure that the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux), will agree with me, if he is in close touch with the people he represents there, that what I am saying here is true.

When we judge the work of this Minister and his Department, we must agree it is a very difficult task. In the first place they are dealing with human relations within the framework of the Government’s policy. That is why it is their ideal to give the Coloureds only the best, the very best within the framework of government policy. You can only give effect to the policy of the Government when all groups are happy. That is why this Department is going particularly far out of its way to do all it can to promote the interests of that group of people whose interests they are administering, in every respect. I think the hon. the Minister has given a very concise and apt name to the policy he is applying when he referred to “separate development with sound borderlines.” When we judge the development of that Department, we should do so against that background. I think I may say that this policy pursued by the Minister and his Department, and which is pursued by the Government, has a prospect of success, and the best proof of the prospects of success of that policy we see in the areas where this policy of an own management has developed furthest. I am now referring to those areas Steinkopf and Concordia. Those areas have already had a measure of control through management boards for a long time, and the communal reserves have been developed there under those management boards. When I refer to those people, I definitely can talk in terms of great praise of what has been brought about in those communal reserves under the leadership of those management boards in co-operation with a very sympathetic department of Coloured Affairs. In the number of years I have lived in Namaqualand I have seen how those reserves have developed. We found here that in respect of agriculture there was over-grazing, water shortages etc. The Department stepped in and gave those people advice and guidance and made provision for water, and those reserves are at the present time, as regards agriculture, infinitely better off than they were a couple of years ago, in spite of the fact of course that they were subject to the same droughts that afflicted the entire North-West. To-night I wish to say without hesitation that there are people in the Steinkopf and Concordia communal reserves who are making a success, and a great success at that, of their farming operations. I think if the hon. member who represents those areas knows his people he will say the same things I am saying to-night. Those people are achieving things. They have proved that the policy of the Government, as administered by the Department and by the hon. the Minister, can succeed and will succeed and that it is in the best interests of the Coloured community. Mr. Chairman, with your permission I should like to refer to just a few important developments. In the first place I wish to draw attention to the social level upon which the Coloured community in those communal reserves are standing. As far as that is concerned, they are on a very high level, and the proof of this is that in the communal reserves Steinkopf and Concordia there is one police station. Those police have told me on several occasions that the moral standards those control boards are maintaining are so high that they hardly have any work in those communal reserves. It is the system of those control boards, under guidance of the Department, that is applied there, which is responsible for this. The only punishment they can mete out is that if a man has been cautioned and he overreaches himself again, then he forfeits what they call his citizenship, and I may tell you that that system is effective. You are dealing there with Coloureds who simply do not make themselves guilty of contraventions such as theft and continuous immorality and other things. Once they have been cautioned by that control board, it is effective and then those things disappear. I think we have the proof there of the value of this system for the Coloureds. In the second place they have developed a sense of independence. I do not wish to dilate upon that, nor does my time permit me to do so. But permit me to tell you about some of the great achievements of those people. In Steinkopf there is only one business undertaking, and it is a co-operative business that was floated with capital that came exclusively from the inhabitants of the reserve. It is controlled exclusively by those people and its directorate consists exclusively of inhabitants of that area. I can say that their business undertaking has maintained a very high level and if people, who are so inclined to call the policy of the Government and the acts of the Minister cruel and brutal, will go and look around there a while, and if the hon. member for Peninsula will take the trouble one day to undertake a little tour with his colleague through my constituency and visit the reserves, I think he will rise here next time and urge the Minister to apply his policy on a much larger scale and much faster.

However, I should like to raise another matter, and that is the great river lands and the irrigation possibilities in the area that belongs to the Coloured Communal Reserve, the Richtersveld. There is a large area of land that could be irrigated at very little cost. In view of the fact that the Orange River dams are now going to be built and that the waters of the Orange River will flow more regularly over that area, that area is offering very great possibilities for the settlement of a large group of Coloureds as horticulturists, as “erfboere” (plot farmers) as they are called there. [Time limit.]

I hope that the hon. member for Namaqualand will forgive me if I don’t follow him, but there are Coloured people outside the Cape Province and I want to speak for some of them. They have nobody at all to represent them here and that makes my responsibility to them the greater. Let me start off by saying that Government policy must be implemented, it is the law. But I suggest that if local authorities do their best to meet government policy, they should be regarded as knowing more about local conditions than any board. I want to deal with the position of the many thousands of Coloureds on the East Rand, with particular reference to the 5,000 Coloureds of Benoni, my own constituency. In August, 1958, the Transvaal and Free State Committee of the Group Areas Board sat in Benoni and considered the question of racial zoning.

On a point of order, the hon. member is now discussing group areas, a matter which does not fall under this Vote.

The hon. member may refer to that matter in passing.

When this Committee of the Group Areas Board sat and considered proposals for racial zoning for the whole of the East Rand, the Benoni Town Council recommended that a Native township called Wattville, should be first choice as a proposed area for the Coloured group.

I am afraid I cannot allow the hon. member to continue discussing that matter. The hon. member can discuss that under the next Vote “Community Development”.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just briefly want to raise a matter affecting our Coloured population. I think the Minister and the Department of Coloured Affairs have succeeded, in a comparatively short time, in gaining the confidence of the Coloured population to a large extent. During the past few years, I think, the Coloured population very soon realized that in the Department of Coloured Affairs they have a particular body which caters for their own interests. Whereas originally there was quite a lot of antipathy to the policy of the Government, I think we can to-day accept, and accept with gratitude, that responsible Coloured leaders and the broad masses of the Coloured population are now convinced that the establishment of this particular Department at last came to them as a light, to create new opportunities for them and to advance their development to a large extent.

I just want to raise this particular point, namely, that it strikes me that the labour force of our Coloured population is still very badly organized. In the large cities like Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, where the labour bureaux function more effectively, it may be a little different, but on the platteland the labour arrangements, particularly in regard to the Coloureds, are still quite inadequate and ineffective. We have the phenomenon in the Western Province that Coloured workers, men and women, and even children, at certain times go and do seasonal work in other areas, but it so often happens that for part of the year these people have no work, and that there is no place where they can ascertain where they can find work. In other words, the position is simply that in this part of the country a large part of our Coloured labour force is not yet being utilized fully, to the detriment of the Coloured population, and I think also to the detriment of the White population. The result of this inadequate regulation of labour is that in past years we have had a tremendous influx of Bantu who were really not necessary and who competed with the Coloureds and took their work from them, forcing them to be satisfied with what employment was left. I find it a serious matter that at present Bantu labour in the Western Province is regulated and co-ordinated much better than Coloured labour. There are Bantu administrative offices in almost every local authority, municipality or divisional council, and there are labour bureaux, whereas that is not the case in respect of the Coloureds. The position is even that where divisional councils administer the affairs of the Bantu at their own cost, the tendency is not to have too few Bantu in that area, because then those services will be run at a loss, whilst the Coloured is consequently neglected and is not given the opportunities for employment which he would have had otherwise. Therefore I want to request the Minister and the Department concerned to see to it that if the Department of Coloured Affairs is unable to tackle this undertaking of providing more labour bureaux for the effective utilization of our Coloured labour force, they will insist that the Minister of Labour should devote his attention to this matter in the interests of the Coloured population, and not only in their interest, but in the interest of the whole of the development in the Western Province. I am convinced that if there is a proper and effective arrangement of labour, we will become aware of the Coloureds to a larger extent, and also discover that they are willing to work, and their efficiency as workers, and then I am convinced that it will assist us in gradually removing much of the superflous Bantu labour still to be found in this area. I want to express the hope that the Minister will not ignore this matter. We are very grateful for the fact that the Department of Coloured Affairs makes certain positions available to the more highly educated Coloureds to-day. There are, however, still many uneducated Coloureds who need opportunities. They ask that the State should assist them by creating channels where they can apply for work, where they can submit their names, and offer their services. This is of great importance to these people and I hope that it will receive attention in the near future, and that it will be implemented in practice.

There are many matters which we hope to discuss with the Minister under this Vote. I will leave some of these aside for the moment in order to refer to a statement by the hon. the Minister in regard to the willingness of the Coloured people to work. I make no excuse for the interjection I made when the Minister was making that statement, i.e. that “it is a scandalous statement”. This is the first time that we have heard from the Minister that now, all of a sudden the Coloured people do not want to work, and that they must pull their weight. The Minister said he received complaints.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “scandalous

I withdraw it, Sir. I want to say, however, that it is an unworthy statement to make. It is the first time we heard it.

What exactly did I say?

You said that if the Coloured people expect to be paid the same wages as the Whites for the same work, … The hon. the Minister shakes his head!

I was referring to the unemployed Coloureds to whom the hon. member for Peninsula referred and I said that there were certain complaints.

I should like the hon. the Minister to stand up and to tell us from whom these complaints came. The Minister has slurred the good name of the Coloured people further by making such a statement. He should tell us from where he got that information. If it came from the farmers, then the Minister must talk to the farmers and tell them that they should treat their Coloured labourers better so as to give them encouragement to work. In this connection, I should like to quote from a speech which was made by an hon. member opposite last year. The quotation is as follows—

This is what has been said by a Nationalist Member of Parliament, i.e. the hon. member for Swellendam. I know of Coloured people who because of the conditions under which they live, are loafers, but this does not apply only to them. The Minister of Labour has told us that it is found also amongst the Whites. Why then did the hon. the Minister make that statement particularly in relation to the Coloured people? I resent it and I take exception to it. I think it is merely an outlet, a political outlet, to the Minister in order to get away from the fact that there is unemployment. Fancy the hon. the Minister letting the country know that the unemployment to which the hon. the Minister of Labour referred, is due to the fact that the Coloureds do not want to work! I do not accept it and it is with great regret that I heard such a statement being made by a responsible member of the Cabinet. I think he thereby did an injustice to himself and certainly also the Coloured people.

The Minister also took this opportunity of making a very important statement in regard to Coloured education. In doing so, however, he studiously refrained from answering the questions put to him in this connection by the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg). This hon. member talked about the conditions put forward by the Coloured Council for such a transfer. The Minister, however, did not reply to him on that at all. Let me say that as far as I am concerned, my attitude to the Coloured Council has not changed from what it has been all along. The hon. member for Peninsula pointed out, and quite rightly, that it was the only legally recognized body the Minister wanted to deal with. Now, this Council has said to the Minister that it will agree to the transfer of Coloured education from the Province to the Government on certain conditions under which is included there introduction of the school feeding scheme; the extension of avenues of employment for Coloured clerical, administrative and professional personnel in this field, etc. It is the duty of the Minister to tell us whether he will give effect to these conditions.

Now I should like to come back and deal briefly with the question of sub-economic housing. Before I proceed, however, I should like to learn from you, Mr. Chairman, whether it will be proper for me to discuss this matter under this Vote?

The hon. member should discuss that matter under Vote No. 45.

I shall do that then. As far as the Vote now being discussed is concerned, I cannot let the opportunity slip by without having added my protest to the one already voiced by the hon. member for Peninsula, against the statement made by the Prime Minister when he said that when he spoke of the “South African nation”, he was speaking only of the Whites. I had expected the hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs to get up to-night and announce that he disassociated himself with that statement. The Minister has courage but I do not think he is allowed to say that. The relevant statement by the Prime Minister was a stupid statement to make …

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

And not only was it a stupid statement to make, but it was also an insolent and impertinent statement. Fancy telling the Coloured people that they are not a part of our nation! The Minister of Coloured Affairs has resorted to a political expedience by saying that what the Prime Minister said was that they were not a part of the White nation of South Africa. But he never said anything of the kind! His statement was a studied insult to the Coloured people. Therefore, I get up here to-night and with all the emphasis at my command tell the hon. the Minister that he ought to be thoroughly ashamed of himself for having associated himself with that statement. The Coloured people reject that statement; they repudiate it. The Minister has rendered to himself a grave injustice by associating himself with that statement. What is more, he has thereby insulted the Coloured people. Whatever we do, the Coloured people are and will remain part of the nation of South Africa and they will do their duty towards it in future as they have done in the past.

The hollow-sounding rage of the hon. member for Boland simply proves again that the wind has been taken out of their sails to such an extent by the speech of the hon. member for Malmesbury and the announcement made by the hon. the Minister that they have absolutely nothing to say. For the sake of the record, I just want to say that what the hon. member for Outeniqua said was not true, namely that I interrupted him. I simply asked them not to hold their caucus meetings here.

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

The hon. the Minister of Coloured Affairs stated very clearly that he associated himself with the statement of the hon. the Prime Minister, namely that when he speaks of the South African nation he refers to the White people of South Africa. That, however, does not mean what the hon. member for Peninsula interpreted it to be, namely that therefore the Coloureds are not regarded as citizens of South Africa. What it does mean is that the Coloured is not a member of the White nation. It means that the Coloureds form a community of their own—they are citizens of South Africa, but at the same time they are a community on their own. I want to tell those hon. members that the longer they continue trying to make the Coloureds believe that they are not a separate community, but form part of the White community, the more harm they will do to the cause of the Coloureds. They are not rendering the Coloureds any service thereby. To tell the truth, one sometimes wonders whom those hon. members really represent if they propound that sort of proposition.

The hon. member for Boland came along with a different allegation, namely that the Minister said a terrible thing when he said that the Coloureds should increase their working efficiency. What is wrong with that? It is something which is often said in regard to the Whites. Time and again the White children are told that they should see to it that they become educated and are efficient in their work, or else they cannot expect to remain the leaders. Is that an insult to the Whites? Of course not. Therefore, why may we not say it to the Coloureds also? The hon. member for Boland even becomes hysterical when we say it to the Coloureds!

But I want to come to another and more important matter. I want to congratulate the Minister on the clear exposition he gave in regard to the future of Coloured education. He sketched how institutions for Coloured education had been taken over by the Department of Coloured Affairs step by step, and he held out in prospect that the intolerable burden which Coloured education places on the shoulders of the Province would be taken over by the Department of Coloured Affairs. The conditions for this which were set by the hon. member for Peninsula will eventually be realized in this way. Only in this way can the necessary adaptation be made in regard to salaries, conditions of service, etc. With a view to this, I want to recommend to the Minister at the outset to do what we are now doing in regard to White education, namely to establish a co-ordinating National Advisory Board. That has already been done for Bantu education. Such an Advisory Board for Coloured Education right from the start will be of enormous value. The fact is that the major portion of the Coloured population is concentrated in the Cape Province, but they have different interests. Then there are also the Coloureds in the other provinces. Coloured education needs co-ordination and planning just as much as White education does. That is why we realized that we had to have a national council for White education, and for the same reason we must provide such a council for Coloured education right from the beginning. The Minister can derive great benefit from it and he must therefore see to it that the matter is tackled in the right way right from the outset. If he can establish such a Council he can get the necessary advice in respect of all the requirements stated by the hon. member for Peninsula, namely with regard to syllabuses, salaries, etc. I want to congratulate the Minister on the very courageous statement he made. It will assist us to progress a step further in the direction of realizing the ideal we have always had in view, namely to make the Coloured community a worthy one which can eventually handle its own affairs.

I wonder whether the Minister would be good enough to give me some information as regards the policy he is going to adopt towards the Coloured community in Zululand the major part of which is knows as the “Dunn” community and living in what is known as the “Dunns” reserve. These people are occupying defined pieces of land of an extent of about 100 acres per family. It has been, I believe, the policy of the Minister’s Department in the past to grant freehold title to the direct ascendants of the late John Dunn. According to the information available to me, although that has been the declared policy for some time, none of these people have as yet acquired title of any of the properties in question. I would, accordingly, be grateful if the hon. the Minister could give me some indication of the progress that is being made in this regard, and also what the policy of his Department is towards the granting of such freehold title.

I should, further, like to know what the policy of the hon. the Minister is in so far as the other Coloured communities in Zululand are concerned. We have a community of Coloured people there who have established themselves and have lived there for a long time. Apart from one small urban location adjacent to Eshowe, I do not know of any other area where these people can establish permanent homes for themselves. I do not know of any such area adjacent to a town or village where the community can settle and acquire houses. I speak particularly of trades people in the sense of bricklayers, carpenters, etc. They are not farmers and that means that they must live somewhere near a town. Apart from Eshowe, however, I do not know of any area where they can live. They cannot live in the Native reserves although many of them do so at the present time—illegally, of course, but that is the only place where they can live. For the rest, they are squatting on the farms or living in a Native location adjacent to a town or village. These people present a problem which, I think, should be solved. They constitute a useful adjunct to the society in which they live and perform a useful function in that society, because as I said some of them are skilled trades people.

I shall be pleased, therefore, if the Minister could give me an indication of what his intentions are with regard to these people, i.e. how he intends fitting them into the society in which they presently move. As I said, I am not speaking so much of the farming community because there is the Dunn settlement for them. On the contrary, it is those who are essentially town dwellers with whom I am mainly concerned, or those who would be town dwellers were there a place for them to live in or adjacent to a town. These are the people who do the type of work which town dwellers usually do.

I just want to say a few words about Coloured labour, particularly with reference to the very appropriate reference made to that matter by the hon. the Minister. As we all know, the Western Province relies on Coloured labour. The Coloured has been with the White man from the earliest days. The White man has taken the Coloured with him and we claim that we know him. We have played together; we have fought together; and we have worked together. When we see to what extend the Bantu are forcing out the Coloureds in the Western Cape, one’s heartsore because it is completely unnecessary, particularly when one compares the Coloured population with that of the Whites. It is completely unjustified unless we establish large secondary industries or undertake large construction works. The Coloureds whom we would like to see in employment are gradually being forced out. Any one who is honest with himself will readily admit that. After all we see it happening around us that the Native is forcing out the Coloured. We see that the Native is entering fields of employment which previously were occupied by the Coloureds. Were the Coloureds not first in the Western Cape? Do they not have first claim on employment opportunities? But who is working in the Western Cape to-day—the Coloureds or the Natives? Why is it that the Coloureds are being forced out as table waiters?

The Bantu work for lower wages.

Why is it that the Bantu are working at dairies and on the farms? In the area where I come from we are building up a dairy industry but wherever one goes the farmers ask one where the labour is to be found. The Coloureds do not want to work on a Saturday or a Sunday. Moreover the type we can recruit for that type of work is the type whom one cannot even trust with such work during the week. Of course there is a high percentage of Coloureds who do excellent work. I am not referring to them. I am referring to those who do not comply with the labour requirements of a civilized country. This is what the hon. the Minister also meant. When one lives with people who enjoy all the benefits offered by civilization, they must be prepared to make their contribution; otherwise they will find that they have lost all their opportunities.

How much do you pay your Coloured workers?

I pay the daily workers 80c per day, and that is the wage for unskilled labour. We cannot get away from the fact that if the Coloureds are prepared to make use of all the opportunities which are available, they can progress in the various primary industries. Then we would not have a shortage of labour, and then we would not need to make use of the services of the Bantu.

If I say that the policy which the hon. the Minister follows in respect of Coloured affairs in terms of the political set-up the Coloureds now have, differs from that which I feel is their due, no one in this House will be surprised. The hon. the Minister has a duty towards the Government seeing that he is a member of the Cabinet and he must therefore implement the official policy. I have a duty towards my voters, namely to ensure that their point of view as regards the political set-up which they want should be submitted to this House. For that reason it is my duty to strive and to plead here. However, I think I would be failing in my duty if I did not express my appreciation to the Minister as a person for the way in which he personally has always acted, in respect of sometimes difficult matters and representations and problems which I have had to submit to him in the past on behalf of my voters. I must admit that, within the limits of the policy which he must implement, he has always tried to find a solution for our problems and difficulties. On behalf of my voters and myself I appreciate the way in which he has treated me personally and received deputations which I have taken to him to discuss matters, and for the fact that he has always acted efficiently and energetically.

As far as I am concerned, it has always been my attitude in my constituency that I advise and encourage the people I represent to use the socio-economic opportunities at their disposal. The hon. the Minister has just alleged that the Coloureds are accepting the socio-economic policy of the Government to an ever-increasing extent. I agree that they are making use of that policy, but they do not accept the political policy. When they make use of it, it is because there is no other alternative. I go out of my way to encourage my supporters to use every opportunity which can result in their educational and economic upliftment. I travel thousands of miles every year in my constituency and I am in close contact with my voters; the hon. the Minister knows that; he knows what I am doing. In order to explain my attitude towards this matter, I tell my voters at public meetings throughout my constituency—and I want to say this in this House to the Government and all members who sit opposite—what my father-in-law who died last year often told me. When he returned from India after the Anglo-Boer War as an ex-prisoner of war, he found his mother and her younger children behind a few pieces of corrugated iron in the ruins of their home on their farm in the Free State. Nothing was left; everything had been destroyed during the war; and this was the position throughout the Free State and the Transvaal, namely the terrible consequences of the war which the Afrikaners had lost. But the Afrikaners did not sit idle. They worked and used the opportunities which were at their disposal in the economic and educational fields, although they were even forced to do so through the medium of a foreign language. To-day the children of those people rule this country. That is what I hold out to the Coloured people. I tell my supporters that they should use the socio-economic advantages which are available to them. They must use the educational facilities which exist and which are being created and all possible economic aid in order to uplift themselves educationally and economically. In this way the White man will have to accept his Coloured fellow citizen as a full citizen of this country within the space of one generation.

While I admit that much is being done in the economic, educational and other fields that represents new developments, the major portion of what is being done should have been done a long time ago. I do not blame the present Government for the fact that it is only being done now, and I encourage my supporters to make use of what is being done. However, this does not change the fact that, as far as the political set-up is concerned the

Coloured people are not satisfied with what they are being given now. The Coloureds are striving by constitutional means to achieve full-fledged citizenship and the time is inevitably approaching when their readiness to take their full place will have to be taken into account.

I want to conclude by directing the notice of the Minister to what Dr. Anton Rupert said recently during a speech in America. He said that the Western group in South Africa did not consist of 3,500,000 people, but of 5,000,000. In other words, the Coloureds belong with the Whites. While I admit that at the moment much is being done to eliminate the backlog under which the Coloureds labour, and while new facilities are being created for them, we must not lose sight of the fact that they also have political aspirations, and I appeal to the Government, as is my duty, to take this into account.

I want to give the example of a satisfied farmer. The State provides assistance if he happens to suffer flood damage. He receives assistance when he is experiencing difficulties as a result of droughts, and he is satisfied with the credit facilities the Government offers him. He is a satisfied person with a good Government. But then there is an election and when he goes to the polling booth, he is told that he cannot vote because he has a loan from the Land Bank.

Immediately one has the most dissatisfied person in the country, because he has been deprived of his vote. The same applies to the 1,500,000 Coloureds in South Africa.