I move—

This Bill contains two clauses only and it aims at amending the Constitution. The first clause deals with members of the Executive Committees. The existing provisions of the Constitution provide that if a member of an Executive Committee should be elected to the Senate or to the House of Assembly he must resign on the day before nomination if his election is unopposed. The reason for that is that the danger exists that unless that is done such a person may occupy two positions of profit in the service of the State. The result of this procedure has always been that if such a member of the Executive Committee is not elected unopposed, then from nomination day to the day before voting day he is not a member of the Executive Committee, provided of course he is not thereafter co-opted by the Executive Committee, or provided he is not re-elected when the Provincial Council is sitting. The result is that such a person can easily find himself without a salary for the maximum period of 35 days or even longer thereafter. That is in conflict with a decision already taken by Parliament in respect of a few other matters. If this member of the Executive Committee is a member of the Provincial Council, he remains a member of the Provincial Council, even though he is nominated for the Senate or to fill a vacancy in the House of Assembly, or even if he is appointed as a member of the Senate. When he is elected in that election, he automatically stops being a member of the council on which he previously served. That is how the Constitution reads at present. In terms of the present provisions of the Constitution, it is therefore not a prerequisite for a Senator or a member of the House of Assembly or a member of the Provincial Council first to resign as a sitting member of that body before being elected to any of the other three bodies I have mentioned here. Therefore in this amendment an attempt is now being made to mete out the same treatment to a member of the Executive Committee as that meted out to a member of the Senate, a member of the House of Assembly or a member of the Provincial Council in terms of the present Constitution. That is the first clause.

Now I come to the second clause. In terms of the provisions of sub-section (1) of Section 72 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the power to determine the times for a session of the Provincial Council rests with the Administrator of the province concerned. Sub-section (2) of this section of the Constitution provided for the resumption of a session of the Provincial Council after the coming into operation of the Constitution if that Provincial Council was not in session immediately before the date of the coming into operation of the Constitution. The requirement which therefore had to be complied with was that the Provincial Council concerned, before the date of the coming into operation of the Constitution, had by resolution to determine as the date of the resumption of the session a date falling after the date of the coming into operation of the Constitution. That was the provision in the Constitution as it reads now. If this requirement of sub-section (2) was not complied with, a Provincial Council in such circumstances could sit legally only if the Administrator concerned, in terms of the provision of Section 72 (1) of the Constitution, determined the date for the session by way of proclamation in the official Gazette of that province. The difficulty in the Transvaal is the following: The Province of the Transvaal complied with neither the provisions of sub-section (1) nor the provisions of sub-section (2), but after the Provincial Council convened on 2 May 1962 for the first sitting day of the third session of the 13th Council, the Provincial Council adjourned sine die on 23 May authority being granted to the chairman, as is usually done, again to convene the Council when he considered it necessary. The chairman then by way of notice in the Provincial Gazette of 4 October 1961 ordered the Council to convene on 7 November, and the Council then again adjourned sine die on 8 November 1961, with the usual authorization to the chairman to convene the Council when he considered it necessary to do so. It now appears that the date for the resumption of the session after 31 May 1961 was not determined before 31 May 1961 as provided in this section of the Constitution, and in this connection the State law advisers gave the following advice to my Department—

Pursuant to this advice of our law advisers, this clause has been circulated to the four Provinces. which have intimated their agreement, and therefore in this clause we want to give the necessary validation. Therefore this clause merely provides that any session of a Provincial Council held after 31 May 1961, but which was not determined previously by way of proclamation by the Administrator concerned, will be regarded as a session held at a time determined by resolution of the Provincial Council concerned previous to 31 May 1961.

I am not going to be long in dealing with this Bill. In so far as Clause 1 is concerned I think the Bill puts the position in clearer language as there was some ambiguity under the existing Act, and as it sets out quite clearly here what is entirely the view of this side of the House, may I say that we propose to raise no objection to the Bill on that score. In regard to the second clause we realize the difficulty in which the Transvaal Provincial Council found itself. It is a legal matter and the law advisers are satisfied that this is the best way of putting right what was a technical difficulty which had arisen. We therefore see no difficulty there either so we propose to support the Bill on this side of the House.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Mr. Speaker, this matter which is now being placed before the House is a matter which has been receiving attention for many years. This legislation is the result of all the struggles which started in 1954. In 1954 the then Governor General appointed a commission, the so-called Cronje Commission, with the following terms of reference—

1. (a) The most effective means of combating, in view of the particular circumstances and the composition of the population of the Union of South Africa, and the territory of South-West Africa the evil of indecent, offensive or harmful literature. lithographic, photographic or other similar material of whatever nature, printed or manufactured, published and/or distributed in the Union of South Africa and the territory of South-West Africa;
2. (b) the desirability of co-ordinating any procedure recommended under (a) with the existing system of control of imported literature. lithographic, photographic or other similar material, and, if deemed desirable, the manner in which such co-ordination should be effected: and
3. (c) any other related matter.

I quote these terms of reference because this was actually the start of all these matters and was the foundation upon which Select Committees had to work and mainly did work. The report of this Commission, U.G. 42 of 1957, was published and was tabled in this House. It appears from that report—and I am quite prepared to say this without any fear of contradiction—that this Commission made an exhaustive inquiry. I think that we all agree on that score. It sat for more than three years and it tabled a comprehensive report. The conclusions were based on facts, facts which were proved by statistics and otherwise. One of the most important conclusions of this Commission will be found on page 88, para. 3:520—

I emphasize that sentence—

I say that this finding certainly rests on facts and statistics, on data which were well considered before this conclusion was arrived at. What is more, the most recent Select Committee which was appointed to inquire into the subject of the Undesirable Publications Bill, adopted the following unanimous resolution on 18 April 1962. I want to point out that on that Wednesday, 18 April, the following members were present. Dr. Jonker, Chairman, Messrs. B. Coetzee and Martins, Dr. Meyer, Mr. Plewman, Mr. Potgieter, Mr. Tucker and Mr. van der Walt. On the motion of Mr. Martins, the following resolution was adopted—

The reason why I am quoting this is that the desirability of legislation is questioned to a very large extent, and many of our newspapers also seek to ridicule such possible legislation. It was unanimously resolved by the Committee, after it had heard all the evidence, that legislation was desirable to prevent the distribution of all these undesirable publications. If I may refer again to the last sentence of paragraph 3:520 where the Cronje Report pointed out that the combating of undesirable literature had of necessity to be effected by means of legislation—and I want to point out once again to you, Mr. Speaker, what the Select Committee decided—then I have a strong point, I think, when I say that the Press does not support us all the way; the Press itself felt unhappy about undesirable literature which may cause harm to the community, a fact which the Cronje Report mentioned. I refer here to the Press Code which the members of the Press Union accepted and which states, inter alia—

This Press Code goes on to indicate what they are opposed to—

So I could go on. I merely mention this to you. What does amaze one—and I hope that the United Party does not fall into the trap which may perhaps be set for them—is what appeared in the Cape Times of this morning. They have an article there in regard to the so-called censorship which will be applied here. But, the Cape Times in its leading article of 4 March 1962 had the following to say, inter alia, about the maintenance of this Press Code and its application—

But, in its leading article of this morning, the Cape Times has this to say about this possible board of control—

[Laughter.] I would not laugh about it; I think it is a disgrace. I think it is a disgraceful article. It has sufficient good people of a high standard for its Code but this board of control, which can also maintain a code, where public opinion will form the code, does not have people available for it—it is a group of old women; they are male and female. I think it is a shame to start off in such a way and to try to make a success of it in this way.

I think that we in this House are probably all in agreement that action should be taken against undesirable publications. I do not think that there is any difference of opinion on this score otherwise we would not have acted as we did on the Select Committee. In this respect there appears to be only one question which to my mind must be answered and that is: What must be the scope of the action which we must lay down in this legislation? The Cronje Commission of 1957 included a proposed Bill in its report at the time, but the Bill was not acceptable either to the Government or to the community because of its drastic provisions. During 1960 a less drastic Bill was introduced into this House, chiefly with the object of testing the feelings and the reaction of the community, but objection was raised to this Bill on two main grounds. The first objection was that there was no appeal to the courts in regard to the question of what was undesirable. That was the first objection. There was only an appeal to an Appeal Board appointed for that purpose. The second objection was to the principle of consultation which was intended to exempt persons from prosecution and avoid unnecessary expense and which at that time was called “pre-publication censorship ”. Those were the two important objections. In the publication Standpunte of August, 1960. Mr. Justice J. F. Marais of the Transvaal Division of the Supreme Court made certain suggestions as to how to deal with local literature. On the basis of these suggestions which he proposed a new Bill was introduced during 1961 and referred to a Select Committee before the second reading, but because of the time factor the Committee was not able to complete its deliberations. The Bill was again referred to a Select Committee before the second reading during the last session and that Select Committee brought up the Bill which is now before the House, a Bill to which only minor amendments were effected during the recess. Therefore, since 1957 this is the fourth Bill on the same subject. Since the presentation of the report of the Commission in 1957 there has been continual mention of this problem of undesirable publications in the Press and a stream of letters has reached my Department. Apart from all the negative approaches there were many persons and bodies who were of assistance in no small way with their proposals and constructive criticism. I would like publicly to thank those persons heartily as well as all the bodies which took the trouble to give further assistance in this regard. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, I would also like to express my hearty thanks and appreciation to all the members of the Select Committees previously appointed, but particularly the members of the Select Committee who tackled this matter last year and who reached unanimity to such a large extent in regard to principles. Where we still have differences I am sure that they can now be more easily removed than was previously the case. I want to thank them for this excellent piece of work which they have produced, work which entailed great sacrifice on the part of Dr. lonker and his whole Committee.

From what I have just said it will be evident that the Government is in earnest in adopting legislation which will have the least possible effect upon any rights of persons, of writers, publishers and so forth, but which nevertheless will ensure that the problem of undesirable publications can be effectively combated. There was definite unanimity on the Select Committee regarding this principle: There should be no interference with rights but this increasing evil had to be combated. There was agreement on this principle although there may have been differences in regard to the details.

The Government also accepts this Bill, the final product of all the criticism, the advice that was given and the discussions which took place, as a basis upon which a system of control can be built up in order to combat the distribution of undesirable things, without in any way harming what is praiseworthy in our national life. This system—I want to emphasize this—is no system and can be no system of censorship. It cannot be so and it must not be so because one of the principles is that any person who has anything to do with a publication or who has anything to do with objects or who promotes any form of entertainment and who feels aggrieved by a decision to the effect that what he has been doing is undesirable, can take his case to the highest court in the country. With censorship there is no question of being able to have recourse to the highest court in the land. The meaning of censorship is simply that a line is drawn through it and that is that. That is why I would like at the start of the discussion on this Bill to try to eliminate the misconception that this is a censorship Bill. It is a board of control and not a board of censors which is being appointed. It is a board of control and its controlling powers will be given to it by building them up from public opinion which is the final judge.

Is it of application to bioscopes?

I would very much like to see films having the same right of recourse to the courts but it was not on the recommendation of the Select Committee or of the Government or of myself personally that this was not provided for. It was at the request of the film companies themselves. They asked that the status quo, in their regard, should be maintained and not changed. This legislation is virtually simply a modernization of the old Censorship Act of 1931 as far as films are concerned.

I want to deal briefly with the Bill. In clauses 2 and 4 provision is made for the establishment of a Board of Control over publications, a board which will consist of at least nine members of whom the chairman, vice-chairman and one other member must have a particular knowledge of art, language, literature or the administration of justice. The intention is to fill the other vacancies by appointing people who have reached an advanced degree of proficiency and distinction in their various spheres. As soon as the chairman and the vice-chairman have been appointed, these two persons will be consulted on the appointment of the other members and this will be done after the other professions or callings in our national life to be represented on the board have been determined in order to render service of the highest standard to the community. I am convinced, in contrast to what the Cape Times had to say, that people of this high integrity, of this high ability, will be found. Besides the board members who will number at least nine, there will also be a panel of experts in spheres which are not represented on the board. They can be appointed when it is necessary to investigate some specific matter—with a board member as chairman—and will make their expert findings and views available to the board. It is also possible that in regard to matters in respect of which there are sufficient experts serving on the board, the board would also like to obtain the views of other experts in the same sphere. In any case, in short it boils down to this that the main purpose is to ensure that the most capable experts in any sphere will make their knowledge available to the community and place their knowledge at the service of the community in order to ensure that in the combating of undesirable things as little harm as possible is caused to the minds and the development of the community. This approach which I have just put to you, Mr. Speaker, besides an appeal to the highest court in the country, is proof that there can be absolutely no talk of censorship, but that this is simply a perfectly honest attempt to remove these undesirable things from the community. That is exactly the same assistance which the Press Union is seeking with its Press Code. It is precisely because it was seeking the same thing, in co-operation with the Select Committee, that this Government exempted the members of the Press Union in subscribing to this Code from the necessity to submit documents or other material to the Board of Control. Read Clause 1 and you will see which newspapers are excluded. Clause 5 contains firstly a prohibition against the production of undesirable publications and objects. It is an absolute prohibition; it is put positively. Various matters, as appears clearly from Clause 1, are grouped under the definition of “publication or object” and I will explain just now what is meant by “undesirable”, As a result of this absolute prohibition against the production of anything which is undesirable, a criminal case can be instituted against an offender, but legal proceedings can only be instituted upon the express instruction of the Attorney-General. In the article in Standpunte to which I referred earlier, Mr. Justice Marais suggests that a few selected persons should peruse the domestic publications and set the prosecuting machinery in motion. After explaining our present and existing legislation, particularly the Provincial Ordinances which we have at the moment and which he states are adequate and merely have to be improved a little, he continues as follows; on page 52 of Standpunte of August 1960 he states—

Then he asks, “Why?”—

Mr. Justice Marais goes further—

I think that we must pay particular attention to this article in Standpunte written by Mr. Justice J. F. Marais. He is a person who is not only a lawyer; he is not only an outstanding Judge, but he is also a leading literary man who is very interested in literature, in art and all related matters, and what he has written here is worth taking notice of.

Of course we do have the Jeremiahs who want to know what is to become of human liberty, what will actually happen if this Bill reaches the Statute Book. To all the clever people who have also been approached on the Rand by Dagbreek to give their opinions and to all the other clever people who are afraid that they will be deprived of their liberties I want to say that I came to one conclusion and that was that it was a pity that their great knowledge left them in the lurch to such an extent that they did not even try to analyse this Bill before they gave their opinions to the world, because those opinions indicate an abysmal ignorance in that what they complain about it positively embodied in the Bill and it is therefore unnecessary to complain about it.

In terms of the provisions of Clause 5 it is an offence to distribute, display, exhibit or sell or offer or keep for sale any publication or object if that publication or object has in a prosecution in respect of an offence been found to be undesirable or has been declared undesirable by the board when the board has been consulted in that connection prior to publication, or in the case of an imported publication or object has, in terms of the Customs Act of 1955, been declared undesirable and therefore unsuitable for importation, unless the finding of the board is set aside on appeal to the courts.

A further prohibition contained in Clause 5 deals with the import of the soft-cover publications or objects the net selling price of which to an importer in the Republic is not higher than 50c.

The 50c morality.

The importation of these soft-cover books without a permit issued by the board is forbidden. The hon. member for Kensington knows that there is every opportunity to import all the soft-cover books that he wants to read. He can read them all if only they are decent. They will be allowed to enter the country.

It has nothing to do with that.

That hon. member will yet realize that it has everything to do with it. If he had read the report of the Select Committee and if he had only read the evidence of Mr. Hattingh of the Customs Department, he would have seen how terrifying it is. The importation of these soft-cover books without a permit issued by the board is forbidden. Besides that the board can also forbid the importation of publications or objects issued by a specific publisher who has the reputation of publishing bad literature. This can be forbidden and the board can also ban anything dealing with a specific subject in connection with which proof has already been shown that that type of subject is usually most undesirable.

The reason why the importation of softcover publications and objects whose price is not higher than 50c is forbidden, except under permit, is that as appeared from the evidence of the Department of Customs and Excise before the Select Committee, at least 90 per cent of all the undesirable publications which are imported fall under this category of soft-cover books. Seventy per cent of the imported material is regarded as undesirable by the Department of Customs and Excise. That is the figure which Mr. Hattingh gave—I think in reply to a question by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant)—and of that 70 per cent which is objected to, 90 per cent comprises soft-cover books.

If it is considered that the importation of about 750 kinds of publications is banned annually, we can appreciate the source of undesirabilities that exists here. At this stage it must already be clear that it is no good putting all the blame upon foreign countries; we in this country must also put our hand into our bosom because some of these undesirable publications have their origin here too. With this legislation we envisage obtaining the highest possible measure of uniformity as far as both this country and foreign countries are concerned and the consideration of what is undersirable in respect of the various media of publication.

I come now to the people who make a fuss and say: You make much ado about nothing and now we are all black sheep and potential offenders and every little thing that we write must be scrutinized and we may perhaps find ourselves in trouble. We do the writing first, we print first, we publish and then we find ourselves in trouble with this board.

In sub-section (5) of Clause 5 provision is made whereby the board can exempt any person or institution from the provisions of Clause 5. I want hon. members to pay special attention to this. Those exempted will be those clean-living persons, those irreproachable institutions which would under no circumstances be guilty of doing these undesirable things. The people who are already afraid that they will find themselves in trouble with this board of control are unnecessarily worried unless they are already perhaps doing things they should not do. If that is the position, I can understand there being a quiet fear on their part if they are so close to the edge that they do not know precisely whether they are still on the decent side or are they moving towards the indecent side. However, these clean-living persons, these irreproachable institutions which are known in the country need not be afraid. There are certain publishers in our own country who would not even consider accepting books or printing or distributing anything if they were not 100 per cent sure that such literature was completely without blemish.

In Clause 8 provision is made for the issuing of permits for the importation of publications or objects the importation of which is forbidden. This is what I want to tell the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore). These two provisions, namely, sub-section (5) of Clause 5 and Clause 8 will be used to exempt certain publications and objects and recognized publishers, importers and so forth, or to permit them to continue their activities. They will very soon discover that the old proverb is true, namely, that a good name is better than all the gold and silver in the world. They will experience no difficulty under this legislation in continuing with their positive and constructive type of work. There are well-known publishers and importers who deem it beneath their dignity to trade in undesirable literature and it is no more than right that they should experience as little inconvenience as possible as a result of the actions of less sensitive persons. Moreover, there are books and other publications which also cannot be mentioned in the same breath as undesirable literature. The publications and objects which are above suspicion must be allowed to enter the Republic or be published here freely, because these form the main artery of that knowledge which is so indispensable for the maintenance of our Western civilization of which we are a part and for the survival of which we in the Republic are struggling to-day. The leading article to which I referred underestimates the intelligence of this Government and of the people at the head of affairs—that we seek to isolate ourselves here from the rest of the world even as far as knowledge and communications are concerned. Of course, we are indifferent to it; we take it whence it comes.

As far as films are concerned, as I have already said, the provisions regarding films contained in this Bill are chiefly merely a repetition of the provisions of the Entertainments Censorship Act of 1931, and they have the approval of the film industry.

I would like to say a brief word about entertainments. The provisions regarding public entertainment are chiefly also the same provisions which were contained in the Act of 1931 in regard to this matter. During 1961 the Press reported that the Chinese in Johannesburg objected to the showing of “The World of Suzie Wong” because the film was said to be an insult to the Chinese, and again recently the community was shocked by certain so-called art paintings dealing with the Christ-image. This legislation could then still be used in this regard. After an inquiry by the board at the time the film was allowed to be shown and the Press left the matter there, and as you know, the so-called painting was banned, although a case is still pending in that connection. The only restrictive addition is in the definition of “public entertainment”, where provision is made for action to be taken against such matters as strip-teases and unsavoury films which in terms of the legal interpretation of the word are not shown in public, that is to say, they have not passed the Board of Censors, but they are indecent films for which private showings are arranged.

Objections are being lodged nowadays from various quarters against the flood of stripteases which has struck our country and difficulties exist in ensuring swift action in order to restrict these activities. As a result of this provision the board will now be able to keep a watchful eye open and take swift action. However, here too care is being taken lest the rights of any person be curtailed. Under the old law the highest appeal in this connection was to the Minister. This is now being changed and the highest appeal will now be to the highest court in the country. If someone feels aggrieved and if strip-teases are to his mind on a very high moral plane, he can appeal until he reaches the highest court and the board must submit to the judgment of that highest court.

The whole idea of the penalties is not to make them too light. I hope that no one will ask for these penalties to be relaxed, because then it becomes very easy to consider a fine as working capital and to pay R100 or R200 for advertising purposes, as is the case at present, and to make an excellent profit from it. Therefore it has been split up into three categories, a first, a second and a third offence.

In conclusion I come now to the yardstick which is used. There will probably be considerable difference of opinion in this regard. The yardstick or the norm which must be used to judge whether a publication or object or film or entertainment is undesirable is to a very large extent a subjective one. It differs from person to person and it is difficult to define in a law and describe precisely the meaning of undesirable in crisp legal language. One can actually only make use of examples and that is what this Bill seeks to do—to give a series of examples which I do not want to repeat here. I must honestly say that there were some words in connection with which I had to inquire from the Department to find our what they actually meant, but it does appear to me that each item mentioned can give rise to a very dirty case. It depends upon many factors. However, we must give guidance somewhere. A court will not be able to leave matters in the air once there is an appeal to it. It has to have guidance from the legislator to be able to determine whether each case falls more or less into the category which he had in mind.

In Clauses 5 (2) and 6, there is a clear statement of what will be regarded as undesirable in the case of domestic publications and objects. Certain publications are excluded in terms of Clause 5 (4), for example, bona fide religious works, court reports, technical, scientific or professional publications and so forth. A few of the people who were examined did not realize that this can be done with reference to all the religious beliefs which we have here. Any religious work which is a bona fide religious work is excluded, but not, for example, a cheap religious work which has religion as its background and ulterior motives besides, and which seeks to ridicule and so forth. Any bona fide religious work and any scientific and professional publication is excluded. They are not affected by this Board of Control.

As far as foreign publications are concerned, they are treated in the same way in terms of Clause 20 if the question of undesirability arises. But, the basic meaning of “undesirable” is also taken as the standard in respect of films and public entertainments and is explained to a greater or lesser extent by examples which are peculiar to those media of publications.

In general I can say that the view in regard to what is undesirable will differ because it is a relative concept, and the relativity of this concept is also the reason why the definition of “undesirable” will be regarded as vague. It is of no avail to debate this matter in this House and to say that the definition is too vague or too comprehensive; that it is not sufficiently clearly defined and to say: If I do this, will it be undesirable, or if I do that, will it be undesirable? That is simply impossible. If we want it more clearly defined, let us rise and move the necessary amendments in this connection. The idea of freedom is to my mind inherent in the vagueness of the definition. Control does not mean curtailment. A controlled person is a free person and if the definition is vague he can move within its limits according to his own interpretation of it. A man who is uncontrolled, an uncontrolled person, is a barbarian; he is an uncivilized person. He offends in every sphere; he will be drunk to-day, tomorrow he will beat his wife and the day after he will do something else again. We call this a lack of control. However, if one is controlled and one can move within limits, one is a free man—one will have reached the highest level of freedom. [Interjections.] I shall forgive those hon. members who are objecting because I do not think they know what I am talking about.

If it is contended that the board can do anything within these vague restrictions by means of its decisions, it must be clear that such decisions can always be reviewed by the court. Remember, the court is there to tighten up the provisions and to determine whether the board is not perhaps operating too stringently.

What Mr. Justice Marais said at the end of his article in connection with a uniform interpretation by our magistrates’ courts of what is “undesirable” is true of all courts and a board will have to adhere to those court decisions. All interested parties will know where they stand after the first few court judgments have been given.

As I said earlier, we are all in agreement, and the public outside are aware of the fact that the problem of undesirability exists. We can try to dismiss it here, but the public know it and everyone desires the Government to do something about the matter. By means of this Bill the Government is coming forward with an instrument which will to a large extent ensure that most of the undesirable matter can be kept out. The problem can be solved beyond all doubt merely by applying censorship, but this Government is not in favour of that. When the first Bill was introduced after the report of the Cronje Commission the Government did not accept it. It is easy to have a censorship board which simply erases without giving reasons for its action. One can then purge, but it is drastic. There must be freedom and we must keep the morals of our people high. Henceforward this matter will best be in the hands of the community to be wide awake and they themselves will have to report contraventions which they think should be investigated and they will have to take action if they feel that certain literature which is being distributed as being controlled unnecessarily and too strictly, and the courts will have to ensure that justice is done.

Let us in this debate rise above the ordinary and realize that it is the duty not only of this Government but of the whole House to ensure that this evil influence which is exerted through the medium of literature and other publications is combated and controlled. We will never be able to eradicate it, but we can control and combat it. Let us realize that we are the guardians, and the responsible guardians, of the people outside; we must give them the necessary protection, particularly to those who are weak. You and I can judge for ourselves whether we should read this rubbish or not and that is our affair, but we must protect the weak from themselves, otherwise they will fall by the wayside and one day we will be held responsible for this fact.

The hon. the Minister in his speech referred at some length to the history surrounding the introduction of the present Bill. The hon. Minister related to us the terms of reference of a commission established in 1954, namely, the Cronje Commission, Then the Minister quoted the findings of that commission and the views expressed in paragraph 88. But the Minister told us nothing of the facts as revealed by that commission. Then the hon. Minister went on to indicate that there was a great deal of unanimity in respect of this Bill now before the House. He attempted to create that impression by quoting a resolution adopted by the Select Committee on 18 April last year, when it was resolved “that in the opinion of the committee legislation is desirable to prevent the dissemination or exhibition of indecent, obscene or undesirable publications, films, entertainments and certain objects and to provide for other incidental matters”, The mere fact that this was a unanimous decision of a committee did not in any way indicate that it was a unanimous decision of the committee that a Bill as at present before the House should be accepted. Between that decision and the Bill before the House at the present time there is a world of difference, and it is that world of difference that I wish to indicate here this afternoon.

Sir, when the Minister related the history of this measure, referring to the five Bills that have been before this House in the past few years, there were certain gaps in the history that the hon. the Minister forgot to bring to our attention. The hon. the Minister forgot to mention for example that when the first Select Committee was appointed that committee had to come back to the House and ask for permission to call certain evidence, and then the bulk of the evidence before that Select Committee was entirely and absolutely opposed to the provisions of the Bill that was placed before that Select Committee for consideration, a Bill which sought to establish a board of control, the principle of control of published matter. With one or two minor exceptions, the bulk of the memo, received by the committee was entirely opposed to the introduction of any system of control; and what is more, many views were expressed that the existing legislation was sufficient to deal with the position. But you will also recall, Sir, that when the original Bill was introduced in 1960 there was a tremendous storm of protest not only from the Press and the general public opinion in our country, but also from beyond the borders of our country. The Bill now before the House, despite the issues that the hon. the Minister glossed over this afternoon and which I will deal with, with regard to the provisions of Clauses 5 and 8, to a considerable degree contains certain of the most objectionable provisions of the original Bill introduced in 1960, although it has been somewhat watered down. I refer, e.g., to the principle of pre-publication censorship by a board appointed by the Minister. I have been gathering the impression for some time in respect of this measure that the Government has got cold feet, and it is my personal belief that there are hon. members on the Government benches who would rather not see this measure before this House to-day. We constantly hear accusations levelled across the floor of the House of sabotaging our country’s interest and its good name abroad, and no doubt in our opposition to this measure to-day, which I will now indicate by moving—

that we will again be accused, together with the English-language Press in this country, of irresponsible actions calculated to harm the good name of our country abroad.

That is very true.

A la the Cape Times.

No, I will give the hon. the Minister some other evidence apart from the Cape Times. In terms of the provisions of this Bill, a ministerially appointed board is set up with powers of pre-publication censorship in respect of imported literature, and by way of intimidation also all publications published in the Republic, and that is something entirely unacceptable in principle to the Western world, and I believe to every man and woman in our country who loves the word “freedom ”. Pre-publication censorship, the control of publications or whatever you want to call it, is a principle recognized by the Western democratic countries as an instrument of power assumed only by dictatorships, no matters whether they are communist dictatorships or of any other kind. Perhaps it would therefore not be remiss of me if I pointed out to the Minister on this point that that is so, and to forestall accusations that we are sabotaging our country’s interests in our opposition to this measure. I want to point out that warnings were given to the Minister and the Government by the Newspaper Press Union in its memorandum to the Select Committee last year. The Cape Times is a member of that union, but it consists not only of one newspaper but of the entire Press of our country, and this is what they have to say—

Sir. that is the consolidated view of these newspapers including Dagbreek and Sondagnuus; those are the views of the entire Press who are members of this union. Those words sum up exactly the fears that we on this side of the House have, and we submit it as a reason why this Bill should not be passed.

Did they say that about this Bill, or about the previous Bill?

This Bill. But the hon. member need not be in a hurry; I will come to that in a moment. The question that has to be answered is: Is a measure of this nature really necessary? The Minister talked somewhat extravagantly in an attempt possibly to create the impression that the degree of undesirability in the literature of our country has now reached fearful proportions.

What did the Cronje Commission say?

I will come to that. The question is whether the volume of undesirable literature imported and published in our country has reached such proportions that special steps are necessary for its control, steps such as contained in this Bill, which undoubtedly go much further than the existing law. Sir. I think the House will agree that the Minister has made out no case this afternoon in this regard in the light of the available evidence. While the Minister spoke I waited for further evidence of the increasing degree of undesirability, both in regard to the imported literature and that published in the country. The Minister’s difficulty was this to-day, that if he had to make out a case that there was increasing undesirability in our publications, that case would have to be based on the presupposition that South Africans are unfitted to use their own judgment in any field and that the moral and spiritual opinions of the churches and other institutions concerned with public morals and welfare are in decline. I ask the Minister whether he will admit that? Will any hon. member opposite make that admission? [Interjections.] By the mere introduction of a measure of this nature the Government is in fact saying that our moral standards as a nation are in decline. This Bill does that in regard to certain classes of literature and certain classes of publications. For example, Clause 5 (1) (c) makes it an offence to import any publication with a soft cover which will be sold to the public of South Africa at a selling price of R 1 and downwards without first obtaining a permit from the board. The Minister will not dispute that; it is a fact. Sir, I am reliably informed that this provision in this Bill will cover approximately 90 per cent of all imported literature in our country, because the trend to-day in modern publishing is not towards the hard cover book but entirely towards the soft cover book.

Of course. All the classics are published in that way now.

The majority of books, even schoolbooks, are to-day published with soft covers because of the cost factor and because of easy production. In fact, on the basis of the values fixed in this Bill it means, in effect, that books of a retail selling price of R1 and downwards will not be able to enter the country without a permit from this board of control. In other words, any publication of that nature, for any man or woman who buys it in the bookshops, he will have to do so in the knowledge that a ministerially appointed board of no less than three persons has approved that reading matter.

What is wrong with that?

In other words, all reading matter in the form of cheaply produced publications will be purchased by the public in the knowledge that what they read is with the prior approval of the Minister’s nominees on his board of control. Apart from the principles involved in these provisions, it is also on the facts of the case a ridiculous proposition, because it imposes a task on a ministerially appointed board which it is virtually impossible for that board to carry out. The Minister referred to the evidence of Mr. Hattingh. I would like to refer the House to the Select Committee’s report. On page 13 Mr. Hattingh gives evidence, the same gentleman whom the Minister named. A question was put to him by the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) as to what were the difficulties being experienced in the number of undesirable publications, and he answered as follows—

In other words, the entrance is of such a volume—and he gives the figures in money, showing that the importation of books per annum is something in the region of R 5,000,000 … [Interjections.] In terms of this provision, in terms of Clause 8 of the Bill, all these publications will be imported only on the prior issue of a permit. Let me therefore quote to the House the opinion of one of the largest importers of books and publications in the country. This is information I have at my disposal and I am prepared to show it to any hon. member opposite—

Why did that organization not give evidence before the Select Committee?

Because that hon. member voted against their being able to give evidence. When a motion was moved that booksellers should give their evidence before the Select Committee, the hon. member for Vereeniging was one of those who opposed it and voted against it.

I challenge you to prove that. You are telling an untruth.

The hon. member says I am telling an untruth, but in the Select Committee report there is a substantive motion moved by myself against which the hon. member voted.

Read my amendment and do not be so untruthful.

On a point of order, surely an hon. member should not be allowed to accuse another hon. member of telling an untruth.

Sir, the hon. member said that he moved a substantive motion that this organization should be allowed to give evidence and that I voted against it. I submit it is not true and I challenge him to read the amendment I moved, that we could call them if necessary, and nobody suggested again that we should call them. In the face of that, it is an untrue statement and I do not think I need withdraw it.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot find the exact resolution here.

It is on page 10, in Roman figures.

There will be further opportunity to deal with the matter when we come to the Committee Stage.

The hon. member can find it at page 10, six lines from the top, where he moved his motion, and my amendment is about ten lines from the bottom. Read it.

Order! The hon. member may continue.

It is obvious that the hon. member is looking for a diversion.

Why do you not read it?

What are the facts in regard to the undesirability? The report of the Select Committee states it quite clearly on cage 8. paragraph 41. When evidence was heard as to the volume of undesirable literature, in respect of the total importations of soft cover books and of all publications, the question was put to Mr. Hattingh as to whether he considered the number he mentioned to be a big percentage. The question was—

That is the 700 publications he mentioned earlier as being undesirable, and his reply was, “Yes, there is no doubt about that.” It is quite clear from other evidence, from the evidence of the Cronje Commission and from the fact that the Minister’s own Department has to gazette over a period of 20 years only about 4,000 titles of publications whose admission to the country was not permitted, out of the thousands and millions which are listed year by year, that the percentage is small. I think the Minister will agree with me that the numbers listed in his own departmental lists, as gazetted, form a very small percentage, taken over this long period. If I remember correctly, the figure given was only 4,000 titles in 20 years.

A further strong objection to this principle of pre-publication censorship is in regard to Clause 8 (1) (b), where the board is empowered to prohibit publications which are published by a specific publisher or which deal with a specific subject. This, in effect, will mean that the principle of pre-publication censorship may be extended to any publisher or any class of publication by a notice in the Gazette, and as far as I can ascertain, with no appeal to the Courts whatever. That is the advice we have got. Now, what about the position of publications originating in the Republic? I said just now that pre-publication censorship in regard to literature published in the country would be applied by way of intimidation. Although no pre-publication censorship as such will operate in terms of the Bill, it is clear that in terms of Clause 8, where powers are granted to the board to examine publications, the publishers in their own interest will feel bound to submit manuscripts to the board before publication. It is no use the Minister arguing that in terms of Clause 7 no prosecutions may be instituted except through the courts. In other words, when the board has declared a South African book undesirable in terms of the wide grounds laid down in Clause 2, the South African publisher, if he continues to publish, can only be prosecuted through the courts, with a right of appeal to the higher Court. But what will happen in practice? Once the board has decided that in its opinion—and only in its opinion—a book or manuscript is undesirable, no publisher in South Africa will dare run the risk of publishing it and being prosecuted, for two good reasons; because in the first place he may be found guilty and there is a heavy penalty, and secondly because of the heavy cost and long delays connected with court proceedings. Obviously, to protect themselves there will be a tendency on the part of publishers to submit everything to the board and to bow to its decision. It was stated by the Minister just now that an incentive to writers and publishers is provided in Clause 8 (6), which provides that no prosecution against a publisher can be initiated in respect of a book not declared undesirable or in respect of which a permit has been issued by the board. Sir. what situation will develop there? This Bill is likely to strangle the growth of South African literature, and Afrikaans literature in particular, because it is particularly vulnerable. It cannot be fed from outside sources, and in the interest of literature no restriction that can possibly have a crippling effect should be placed on such literature.

The hon. the Minister has made great play of the name of Judge Marais, in support of this measure. Is it any wonder that the Stigting ter Bevordering van Suid-Afrikaanse Publikasies, an organization supported by the S.A. Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, in which Judge Marais plays a very important part, had this to say about the principles involved in this Bill—

I am quoting from a memorandum submitted to the Select Committee by that body on the 1960 Bill, which contains the same provisions. Clearly, this is pre-publication censorship by intimidation. Does that justify my charge? What are the facts in regard to undesirability or the extent of undesirability, which the Minister did not quote this afternoon? In evidence before the Cronje Commission it was shown that an exceedingly small percentage of all publications produced in the Republic was found to be undesirable, and those were produced by an insignificant number of publishers. The Minister talks about 70 per cent. I do know where he got that information from.

I quoted from the evidence of Mr. Hattingh, page 6, paragraph 34, to the effect that of the publications submitted to the board about 70 per cent was undesirable.

I am sorry. I misunderstood the Minister. But the point in issue is the number placed before the board by the Customs Department. It is not 70 per cent of all the publications produced in the country, which was the impression created by the Minister. But what are the facts? What is the extent of the undesirability of literature published in the Republic? From evidence before the Commission it was shown to be a very small percentage. Let me state it clearly now so that there can be no misunderstanding about the findings of the Cronje Commission. In regard to books published in our country over a 20-year period from 1935 to 1954, in the English language the Cronje Commission found that only one book was of an undesirable character, and of the 3, 746 Afrikaans titles examined by the Commission, only 72 in the same 20 years were found to be undesirable, or 1.9 per cent; and of the 72 found to be undesirable 71 books were for adults and one was for children. Of the 72 undesirable books in Afrikaans, which were published by seven different publishers, only two publishers out of the seven were responsible for 56 undesirable books over that period. The question may be asked Who they were. In regard to weekly magazines, the Cronje Commission found that the extent of undesirability was insignificant, and in regard to articles published in South African magazines it was trifling. There was one English book in 20 years and 1.9 per cent of Afrikaans literature, and there was an insignificant amount of magazine articles, but in spite of that we are told to-day that it is necessary to introduce a measure of this nature, establishing a board of control with the right of prepublication censorship, [Interjection.] I am quoting the facts found by the Cronje Commission, which was absolutely opposed to the principle of censorship. In Clauses 5 and 8, the two most important clauses, the Minister takes a backward approach to censorship as opposed to the frontal approach he took when he introduced the 1960 Bill. The 1960 Bill provided that no person could print, publish, display, exhibit or keep for sale any book or periodical without the prior approval of the Publications Board. Sir, I think I have said enough to prove the point that there is very little difference between the measure now before the House and the one which was brought before the House in 1960 to which there was such grave objection. I do not believe that hon. members opposite have a full realization of what is actually proposed here to-day. Hon. members opposite are being asked to approve the establishment of a board of nine members, of whom any three, whether they possess special qualifications or not, can make arbitrary decisions on most aspects of the cultural life of our nation. Not only all printed works or publications but drawings, paintings, carvings, writings, photographs and cartoons, but what is infinitely worse is that the creative works of any artist, writer, carver or photographer will be subject to a complaint to the Board by any quack. For instance the hon. member for Vereeniging may object to any writing or carving because in his opinion it is undesirable and contrary to public morals. One can imagine the hon. member for Vereeniging entering a private exhibition where he cannot understand any of the works exhibited; he thinks they are terrible and he then decides to complain to the Board. He has the right to complain in terms of this Bill, Clause 8 (1) (a). The Board is empowered at the request of any person to give its opinion. Sir, when one observes some of the Mother Grundy views expressed in the report of the Cronje Commission, a real danger exists that such bigoted views may dominate the Minister’s Board of Control. Let me illustrate the ridiculous situation which we are being asked to approve. Newspapers, which incidentally are not defined and which are members of the Newspaper Press Union are exempted from the provisions of this Bill. I would like the Minister’s attention here …

You are not so important.

I would like clarity because the Minister made a statement here to-day which as far as I can understand the position is not in conformity with the definitions contained in the Bill. In terms of the definition Clause 1 newspapers are exempted by virtue of the fact that they are members of the Newspaper Press Union and by virtue of the fact that they have laid down their own code of conduct. On the other hand magazines or periodicals, whether weekly or monthly are subject to control by the Board. Virtually all proprietors of periodicals and magazines printed in the Republic are members of the Newspaper Press Union, the main exceptions being trade and technical journals. I would like some clarity from the Minister here because as I understood him to-day he said that magazines …

[Inaudible.]

I am sorry to hear that it was a slip on the Minister’s part because nearly all magazines—in fact all magazines with the exception of trade and technical journals in our country—are printed and published by the Newspaper Press Union, and if the Minister says that he made a slip it gives more emphasis to the point which I now wish to make.

How about putting your slip in the Bill.

The Cronje Commission had a great deal to say about womanhood in South Africa. It had some very pertinent observations to make in this regard in discussing the undesirability of publications. Let me quote from page 52, paragraph 3192—

and here comes the important line—

We are being asked to-day to approve of a Bill in which for example, a slimming advertisement of a woman in the nude can with impunity appear in a newspaper but in a magazine published by the same proprietor it would be offending public morals if the board had to express its opinion in that regard. It makes a mockery and a fantasy of the legislative machine of our country. A newspaper can print a delightful, provocative pose of film stars but in the case of a magazine, if anyone of the Minister’s board members has the same views as those who sat on the Cronje Commission as far as photographs of this kind are concerned, then they can express their opinion that it is harmful to public morals and that magazine can be banned or prosecuted. At any rate it will be liable to prosecution. Can you imagine Sir, if we had the sort of ministerial board that is likely to be appointed by the Minister what would happen to a modern South African Chaucer or Shakespeare should he arise and create a play such as Hamlet? Sir, Clause 5 (2) (c) provides that a publication is deemed undesirable if it brings any section of the inhabitants of the Republic into ridicule or contempt. Can you imagine under that clause what would happen to the work of a modern South African Bernard Shaw should he arise in our midst. Plays with such far-reaching effects for good on the social structure and the morality of society would have been suppressed before birth. The fact remains that if this Bill goes on the Statute Book of South Africa all creative works will be subject, justifiably or unjustifiably, to an opinion expressed by the Board of Control as the result of a complaint by any person, because the grounds on which the Board is required to give its opinion are so widely and vaguely framed. These board members, these ministerial appointees, will in the last resort be guided by their own prejudices and restricted by their own limitations in expressing any opinion. This Bill does not set up a Board of Control; it sets up a panel of thought inquisitors somewhat reminiscent of the Middle Ages. Without hearing evidence as to what is good and to what is not good the board can express opinions and so lay down standards for public consumption to be complied with by any of the publications that may be issued in our country or imported for that matter. You cannot get away from the fact that that is what is provided for in the Bill before us. It would therefore not be out of place to quote Bernard Shaw here because he once wrote—

Sir, right is right and more often than not publishers publish views on disturbing and difficult questions, social questions, political questions, religious questions, and they do so at moments very inconvenient to a government. Any government which stifles the artist, the thinkers and the writers in our South African community by placing on the Statute Book a legislative fiat that their works can be declared undesirable and thus banned merely because in the opinion of some board it has created something which this Government regards as undesirable, embarks on a course which has been shown throughout history leads to intellectual bankruptcy and the development of a fourth-rate nation.

In the time at my disposal it is not possible to deal with the other aspects of this Bill. In regard to censorship and films, the provisions remain largely the same as the provisions which have applied for quite a number of years. It is the view of this side of the House that existing legislation and the common law adequately prevent abuse. The crimes of treason and sedition, blasphemy, obscenity and defamation all fall within the ambit of the common law and in addition to these there are no less than 14 other statutory provisions on the Statute Book of our country such as, for example, the Riotous Assemblies Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, the Public Safety Act, the Defence Act, the Post Office Act, the Prisons Act, the Police Offences Act, all protecting the public of South Africa in those very matters in which this Bill seeks to protect the public. As I have said, it is our view on this side that the existing statutory provisions take adequate care of the position. Sir, our opposition to this Bill is based on a fundamental belief, and I am going to try and impress it on the Minister. This is not an attempt to play politics. Our attitude is based on the fundamental belief in freedom of speech, freedom of thought …

Licence.

It is no good my hon. friend calling it licence. It may be “licence” to him who seeks to be controlled, but we consider that those freedoms are vital to the well-being of a free and democratic society. Let me impress upon the Minister that freedom of publications is not a different freedom from freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It is an identical freedom, subject to the same control, the same limitations, as any other freedom and there are the same penalties for abuse. The people of our country, people who are worth their salt have always revolted against the indignity of being treated as children who are not allowed to search out the truth for themselves but who are told what they may read and therefore how they should think by a Board of Censors or a Board of Control ministerially appointed. Censorship of the kind suggested in this Bill, even if it is direct censorship, as the Minister says, because there is some remote appeal to the Courts, strikes in our opinion at the very roots of freedom of expression, and I therefore want to ask this question: How can we in our country hope to build up a healthy virile literature of our own or a truly national drama if the rights to criticize freely and to select or to reject in our own judgment is denied us? Sir, man’s gift of reason is his freedom to choose between what is good and what is bad. We on this side of the House can never accept a Board of Control such as proposed in this Bill, which will have but one result and that is to stultify and impoverish our national intellectuality. We on these benches believe that it is a fundamental premise of our South African society that our citizens in the exercise of their own judgments should be free to inquire, debate and choose between conflicting views. Free enterprise in ideas and their expression is indeed the life blood of our South African society, and it is therefore with these memorable words of John Milton calling from the past, “give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all other liberties”, that I propose to move on behalf of this side of the House:

I second.

Before I reply to the few points raised by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) I wish to address myself to the hon. the Minister and to thank him on behalf of the Select Committee for the words of appreciation which he has expressed to me and, through me, to the members of the Select Committee. We did not have much time to do the work. The legislation was referred to the Select Committee on 24 January and we concluded our business on 28 April. That was only possible because so much had already been done by the Cronje Commission and by the previous Select Committees. It was possible because of the excellent work which had been done and the assistance given to us by the officials of the Department who assisted the Select Committee. I in turn wish to thank them very heartily for what they did and I also wish to express my gratitude to my colleagues on the Select Committee on both sides of this House.

I do not want to say anything at this stage with reference to the unfounded charge levelled by the hon. member for Turffontein at the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee). I think I can leave him to the mercy of the hon. member for Vereeniging who will square accounts with him further when he takes part in the debate. I shall therefore leave that matter there.

The hon. member for Turffontein as well as several newspapers and a number of persons outside this House tried to create the impression, as I have said, that we will become the laughing stock of the world as a result of this legislation. According to him this legislation is something terrible and we will stand branded because of it in the rest of the world. I just want to point out to him the countries in which legislation of this nature exists. On page 3 of the Cronje Report, paragraph 1:27 we read the following—

We are therefore in very good company in introducing this legislation. I wish to refer further to page 176 of the Cronje Report. There it is set out what certain countries do. In certain countries where similar legislation exists there is no recourse to the courts. In certain countries they can only ask for re-consideration. In other countries, such as Britain and West Germany, there is recourse to the courts.

We are not so bad.

We are therefore not as bad as the hon. member tries to paint us in the eyes of the world.

The hon. member also referred to what Judge Marais said; he wanted to neutralize the effect of the words of and the quotations by the hon. the Minister and that was why he quoted something else. I think he should have quoted what Judge Marais said with reference to the legislation which is before the House at the moment. In Dagbrek and Sondagnuus of 27 January 1963 Judge Marais said this—

He said further—

That is the reply in regard to the prudish prosecutions to which the hon. member for Turffontein referred. He tried to create the impression that action would be taken against people and that they would be deprived of their freedom of speech and thought. Mr. Speaker, some people are free to think but they lack the brains to think with. The hon. member also made great play of it that if a Chaucer should rise in South Africa, or a Shakespeare or a Shaw this legislation would kill them; they would not be able to write. But the fact is that all the works of Chaucer and all the works of Shakespeare and all the works of Shaw are freely allowed in the Republic of South Africa. If we allow them why should we kill our own? If we allow their works, South African Chaucers or Shake-speares or Shaws will also be able to write here. I wish to point out the inconsistency of the hon. member. He moves that this Bill be read to-day six months. He advanced a definite reason why he did not want legislation at all the reason being that this legislation would hamper the freedom of speech but he agreed in the Select Committee that legislation was necessary.

Then there was freedom of speech.

He then agreed that legislation was necessary. If he wants to be consistent and constructive and make a contribution to the work of this House, he should get up and say: This is not good legislation for this or that reason and we should put this or that in its place. Then he will be consistent and constructive but instead of that he says: Away with the Bill and away with all legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it was an honour to me to have been chairman of this Select Committee. I was also a member of the Select Committee which dealt with the Bill in 1960 and I have the experience of having served for three years on the Film Censorship Board as a member and in that capacity I realized how impossible our present system was. I wrote at the time that the entire system should be revised. I just want to outline in brief how the system still operates to-day. On the one hand you have the Film Censorship Board which is really only equipped to view and to judge films, but later on they had to read books as well and give their opinion on those books, a task, with all due respect to this board as a whole, which they are not capable of doing. They were not appointed for that purpose; they were appointed for a different purpose. When I was a member of the film board we divided the board into two groups in order to cope with the work and yet every member of the board had to look at 1,000,000 feet of film every year. In America they regard 250,000 feet as the maximum which a member of a Film Censorship Board ought to judge. We had to look at 1,000,000 feet and judge books as well. Under the Customs Act a different system with a different yardstick is applied by different people at the harbour where the books enter, entirely independent of the Film Censorship Board. Then you have the officials in the post offices who have to apply their own norm in terms of the Post Office Act. The result is that it is physically simply impossible to do all the work. The evidence before the Select Committee was to the effect that all that was done was that test checks were made. If they receive a case of books they only look at the invoice and if some of the titles appear to be offensive or undesirable they open the case and look at a few of the books but the greater majority simply go through; they are sold overnight and tremendous profits are made by the sellers. That machinery is obsolete, ineffective and not useful. It was our duty to try to create machinery which will be useful and effective. As far back as March 1959 I submitted a memorandum to the then chairman of that committee, the present Minister of Coloured Affairs and Community Development in which I made recommendations as to how, in my opinion, that Act ought to be amended, that Act which made no provision for appeal to the courts of law. I said—

That was the essence of what I submitted as far back as March 1959 and we drafted this Bill on that basis, on the Cronje Report and on the work of previous Select Committees. The hon. member for Turffontein said there was really no difference between the 1960 legislation and the Bill which we drafted here. The Select Committee even altered the 1961 legislation which it had before it, the legislation which was referred to us last year, so radically that the legal draftsmen told us that we should draw up an entirely new Bill, that there was such a big difference that we could not just take the old one and patch it here and add a piece there. I just want to point out the differences and the changes which we made. It was suggested in the 1961 Bill which was referred to us that a board, something similar to the existing Film Censorship Board, should undertake the work and judge all publications. That Bill provided for appeal to a Control Board to be appointed by the Minister and not to the courts of law. Provision is made in this Bill for an entirely new board consisting of at least three persons with the proper knowledge, people who are appointed on the strength of their knowledge of art, literature, legal training etc. I should have liked to have had four. I should have liked to have had a representative of one of the sciences as well but I submitted to the majority on the Select Committee. We drafted the Bill by giving and taking and by adapting ourselves to each other’s ideas. Then we have a panel which was not provided for in the old Bill, a panel of people who can assist the board at the latter’s request and it will not be necessary, for example, for every film to be seen by exactly the same people. A film censor eventually becomes less critical and it is possible for the chairman, under this measure, to say that a certain type of film should be judged by a certain panel, while another film dealing with a different subject should be judged by other people under the chairmanship of a member of the board.

We have introduced the principle of appeal to the courts of law. There is no such thing as censorship. The only idea of censorship came from the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman). He suggested that it should not be a board of control over publications but a board of censors. The majority voted against him. Only two voted for his suggestion. If this board is a board of censorship it ought to have the powers which certain bodies in a state such as Israel, for example, have. In Israel no newspaper, no periodical, may publish anything about the army or the movements of the army or military installations or anything similar or anything which may jeopardize the safety of the State without having submitted it to the official concerned. That is censorship. The person who imports books need not pay any attention to the board. If he wishes to import books without submitting them to the board he can do so, but then he must take the consequences. I can go where I want to in this free Republic of ours but if I trespass on somebody else’s property I must take the consequences. It is only censorship when there is compulsion; if you have to submit everything which you write or which you want to import. This Bill makes provision for the board to be there and anybody who wishes to approach it may do so, inside and outside the country, and say: Here is a manuscript or here is a book; please judge it for me and tell me whether it is in order. If the board says it is, that person is free and at liberty. If the board says “no”, he can still publish it but then he must take the consequences. A prosecution can be instituted but again it is not for the board to say that he must be prosecuted. The board has to go to the Attorney-General and it lies within the official discretion of the Attorney-General to say whether or not there should be a prosecution. [Interjections.] Read the Bill which is before you at the moment. I am not dealing with the original Bill; I am dealing with the one which is before us at the moment. This Bill provides that any person may go to the board, pay the prescribed fee, and say: Please judge this book; I do not think it is a desirable book. The board then reviews it and gives its judgment. If the board finds it to be undesirable it declares it to be undesirable. In that event the author or the publisher or the importer may go to the court and say he challenges the board’s decision.

A great deal has been said about the vagueness of the norm which has been compiled. I want to say in the first instance that large portions of that norm is almost word for word the same as the norm which appears in existing legislation. It applies in the case of films, and the Film Censorship Board also applies it in respect of books it has to judge. It is practically word for word as it appears in Act No. 28 of 1931. Some hon. members act as though we have never had censorship in this country. We have had it since 1931 and we have had it before in other legislation and in the same wording. They have never complained about that; we have never heard about frivolous prosecutions or anything of that nature. We now go to Court with this vague norm, as they call it. What the hon. the Minister said is true: the vagueness in so far as it is vague; its width in so far as it is wide, gives the writer and the publisher a lot of rope, but it also gives the Court a lot of rope to differ from the decision of the board. If the Court says: “But this thing is too vague; I cannot find the person guilty on this” then he is acquitted. That very vagueness is one of the guarantees to which Judge Marais referred when he said that there could not be any frivolous prosecutions. The real danger is this that the Courts of law, with the well-known care they exercise, will perhaps treat people who are charged so leniently that the norm will very soon become not the norm as we understand it to-day, or as we want to understand it, but will become the norm as interpreted by the Courts of law. In that case the board will be bound by the Court’s decision. I want to challenge any member of the Opposition to tell me in which country in the world where they have this type of legislation—and there are many; I have mentioned some of them—the individual has greater democratic freedom than that which is recommended here? I have mentioned countries where recourse to the courts is not allowed; countries where they only allow the board to be asked to reconsider its decision. Here, however the road is clear throughout as far as the highest court. Hon. members always have a great deal to say about the rule of law. to-day they do not want to hear anything about the rule of law. Now that we have a Bill in which the rule of law is the main principle, they say it should be read to-day six months.

Neither is it true, Mr. Speaker, that the majority of the memoranda submitted opposed this legislation. Many of the memoranda which were submitted to us also dealt with the original Bill. Throughout the one objection they had was the fact that the courts were not recognized in the matter. When the 1961 Bill was submitted to us we again approached those people who had objected. Many of them did not even reply and many of those who did reply said they were satisfied; their difficulties had been removed. But we as a Select Committee were not as yet satisfied with that. We once again went through that Bill until we got what we have before us to-day, a Bill in respect of which Judge Marais said: It is a good Bill, a Bill which can be put into practice.

What is being prohibited in this Bill, Mr. Speaker? This Bill has nothing to do with books of a high cultural standard; books about art, books on the promotion of learning are, as the Minister has said, not affected at all. Other books of a high literary standard have nothing to fear under this Bill because the board which is to be appointed, will be a board of able and informed people, people who are in a position to judge. What these writers write in Sondagnuus and Dagbreek that a handful of people will prescribe what we should read is not true. That is nonsense; the courts of law of the country will ultimately determine what is desirable and what is undesirable. I can only say this: A person must have grown very warped in his mind; a person must have sunk very low morally, if he can no longer differentiate between what is desirable and what is undesirable. Once a person’s soul is no longer attuned to sensing that this or that is something filthy, he must really be in a bad way. I want to ask any hon. member of the Opposition which court of law in South Africa they think will ever be so foolish as to find a person guilty because he has written in a book how a cow is slaughtered, as somebody said, while the Mohammedans are opposed to the slaughtering of cows? Which court will be so foolish as to find a person guilty on that ground? I do not want to say anything about a case which is before the court at the moment; nor will you allow me to do so, Mr. Speaker, but what has happened there up to the present is proof of the freedom which we enjoy in this country. So far we have always had the right, as the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) said by way of an interjection, under our existing legislation to turn to the courts in regard to any publication, any statute, any painting and to complain that it is undesirable. People do not do that, however, because it is too costly, because they themselves have to bear the costs. That is why we make it possible for people who object to certain things, to go to the board and against the payment of a small fee, the board will judge whether it is undesirable. One of the underlying principles of this Bill is to combat the publication of filth, pornographic material, anything blasphemous or offensive, or communistic propaganda. That is the object of this Bill. The whole machinery which has been created is aimed at that. Nobody who does not make himself guilty of producing anything filthy, anything pornographic, blasphemous, offensive or nauseating, things which any right-minded person knows in his soul will be ruinous to the nation, need fear anything under this Bill. That is why I say that those who are opposed to the underlying principles of this Bill are in favour of filth, pornography, blasphemy, things that are offensive or communistic propaganda. This machinery which we have tried to create and which is embodied in this Bill, can be put into practice. It took us a long time to evolve some way whereby a body, with the assistance of a panel of persons, could cope with the millions and millions of publications to which the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has referred. I think we found the solution, with the assistance of the evidence given before us, in this procedure: firstly to ban the paperbacks, because that is where the greatest evil lies; to make it possible to ban an entire series; to make it possible to place a complete ban on the publications of certain publishers overseas whom we know publish nothing else than communistic propaganda. An importer can import ten or 100 of those if he wishes to do so, submit them to the board and say: Look, this is a paperback, but I think it is a good book. That is not censorship that is control. If that is censorship then the Potato Board is also a censorship board; then the Deciduous Fruit Board is also a censorship board. We only want to allow that which is good and noble; we want to curtail that which is dirty and filthy. That is the object of this Bill. That is why we call it a board of control. We want to assist that which is good and constructive; we do not wish that to be ousted by the weeds and the filth which is thrown on to our field from outside and sometimes from inside. This board can therefore undertake the gigantic task of supervising these things. It can say to certain publishers whose work it knows: What you publish is all right. Until such time as somebody comes along and says this or that book is not in order, then the board must go into the matter. The board is compiled in such a way that it is practically possible to exercise proper control over the terrific influx of literature and reading matter from outside and sometimes from inside.

There has been objection from certain quarters to what is called the excessive penalties that can be imposed. We went very thoroughly into this question and we decided to divide it into three sections. For the first contravention a minimum and maximum; for the second contravention a minimum and a maximum and for the third contravention such a heavy penalty that the person will not easily commit the same offence. The reason for that is this, Mr. Speaker: experience has taught us that those people who import this offensive material have such a very large market for it amongst those people who have been called “adults” here, that a light penalty will not deter them. I think that anyone who takes pleasure in reading dirty books and looking at unsavoury pictures is not adult; he is a thwarted child. Experience teaches us that such publishers make tremendous profits within a short time. If they are fined a small amount only, they will simply pay that fine out of their pockets and do the same thing again next day. Or else they can increase the price by 1c, and the extra income it will ensure is more than enough to pay that fine. That is why we decided on high penalties, and even higher penalties on a second offence, and such a high penalty for a third offence that they will think twice before doing it again. That, I think, is the only way to deter these people.

Therefore I take great pleasure in knowing that I was so closely connected with this Bill. I really think, from the experience I had as a member of the Censorship Board and as an author, that I can tell my fellow authors: I am equally concerned about writing what is my honest conviction. I have not found a single provision in this Bill which will prevent me from writing as I did in the past and as I intend continuing to write in future. “I have nothing to fear from this Bill”, as Judge Marais said. I want to give that assurance to my fellow authors who have clearly shown, by the way they expressed their opinions, that perhaps they have not even read the Bill, and if they did they did not understand it at all, or if they did they confused it with the 1960 Bill, as did the hon. member for Turffontein. Our writers have nothing to fear. On the contrary, there is every encouragement to them, because we will not allow the weeds to oppress the good products on the soil of our culture; we will clean the soil; we will eradicate all the weeds so that there will be fertile soil for what is good and beautiful in our culture to become great and strong.

I do not question the list of countries which the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) quoted as being countries in which censorship is applied. But I challenge him to show me legislation in any of those countries which is similar to the Bill which is before us to-day. He indicated that the legislation in those countries was legislation of this kind—“ van hierdie aard” were his words. I challenge him to establish that it is “van hierdie aard”, There might be legislation of that kind in some countries. The hon. member said that because there was legislation in other countries we were in good company. All I can say, having regard to some of the countries he mentioned, is that he seems to find comfort in having some strange friends.

What I do question is the construction which the hon. member—and I am sorry to say also the hon. the Minister—attempted to put on the resolution which was passed in the Select Committee on 18 April. That resolution was to the effect—

I voted for that because what is wrong with it? I am still satisfied and I still believe that legislation is desirable (I quote) “to prevent the dissemination or exhibition of that which is indecent, obscene or undesirable ”. I am still of that opinion and therefore I voted for the resolution. The hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Fort Beaufort know that the procedure followed by select committees is that after a resolution has been taken, only then is the form which the proposed legislation should take placed before the Committee. The report makes it quite clear—

My colleague and I left no one in doubt about what we wanted. At the soonest possible moment we showed that what was wanted was legislation to prevent what was “indecent, obscene or morally undesirable", The hon. member for Fort Beaufort drummed it into our heads that he was against the “vuile en die smerige”, We, too, Sir, are against the “vuile en die smerige". That was why we, firstly, voted for the resolution that there should be legislation and, secondly, we indicated that it should be legislation to cover those particular aspects.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort—and here again the hon. the Minister himself— made great play of the so-called difference between the words “censorship” and “control”, But what is important is what a body such as this is empowered to do; not what it is called. I still think that “Board of Censorship” is better than “Board of Control I am not so sure that the hon. the Minister’s interpretation of “censorship” is right, but I find his interpretation of the word “control” very unreal and in fact quite frightening. The Bill is concerned with what I choose to call the censorship of four types of matters. One, the books that we may read two, the pictures that we may look at; three, the films that we may see; and, four, the plays that we may attend. Censorship is enforceable in any of those cases where this new and ominous classification called “undesirable” applies. Although this word “undesirable” has no place in the title of the Bill, it is nevertheless the king pin, the very essence of the legislation before us. The word is defined so widely, Sir, as to make the whole object of this Bill positively frightening. Its provisions jar against one’s natural instincts for justice, and one’s natural instincts for tolerance to opposition and political differences. I will deal with that later on. I will confine my remarks mainly to the first of these matters, that is the books and other publications which we may read. In so far as film shows are concerned, the Minister has indicated—and he is obviously quite right—that the Bill merely re-enacts provisions which are already on the Statute Book. I myself had felt that this would be a suitable opportunity in which to allow recourse to the courts in the case of objections to films. I am very glad to know that the hon. the Minister is of like mind, that he too would have preferred to see an addition to this legislation by allowing recourse to the courts. I think this is one of the instances where the hon. the Minister might try to use his persuasive powers with the film industry itself. I know he is correct when he says that the film industry itself saw no need for any such addition, and I therefore feel that I should leave the position there.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) stated that this Bill has had quite a long history behind it. As I see it, it is, on the one hand, a history of vacillation as to the method of curbing the freedom of speech, or the freedom of the Press as it is sometimes called. On the other hand, it is also a history of the Government’s determination to institute some form of systematic internal control and censorship over the printed word in South Africa. Accordingly the Bill now sets up what I regard as rather a cumbersome machine of control. I have no intention of traversing the historical background all over again. But I think one historical fact must be stressed as far as the future is concerned, namely, that notwithstanding the wise changes that are to be found in this Bill as compared with the original Publications and Entertainments Bill (1957-60) in that it does away with arbitrary pre-publication censorship and allows recourse to the courts, the fact remains that when this Bill becomes law, it will constitute yet a further invasion of civil rights and freedoms in South Africa. In particular it will put up a higher fence of political censorship around the democratic principle of the free expression of opinion and the free criticism of the conduct of the Government. Perhaps I should put it this way: It will put a political censorship round the freedom of expression of opinion and criticism of the consequences of the conduct of the Government. Now, Sir, let there be no misunderstanding about the point I am trying to make. I do not suggest that the freedom of expression of opinions the freedom to criticize, must be absolute. Everybody knows that the law penalizes libel and slander and that it penalizes sedition and treason and any incitement to public violence. Our common law, as my hon. colleague has indicated, is quite adequate to deal with transgressors of that kind. Our common law places in the hands of the courts adequate powers to deal with persons who may choose to be transgressors in that way of the private rights of the subjects or the public rights of the State. One naturally also accepts that restraint against transgressors of public morals and public order is equitable, provided again that it is left in the hands of the courts to fix and to deal with it. Just as one has been left in no doubt, Sir, in recent weeks that blasphemy comes within the competency of the courts and that that is a matter which is very well left to be dealt with and to be adjudicated upon by the courts. Far better that it should be dealt with openly by the courts under a system which is designed by examination and cross-examination to bring out the truth, much rather than this sort of investigation to take place in the privacy of a board room, such as will operate under the provisions of this Bill.

But the fact that freedom is not absolute, that there are restraints of the nature I have indicated, in no way detracts from the fact, but rather tends to confirm, the essential principle of democratic government that there should be sufficient scope to the subject to oppose and to criticize the Government. In other words, Sir, there should be adequate scope by which those who are governed are entitled to criticize and to express their opposition to what the Government does.

Sir, Ivor Jennings has expressed that position very well, I think, in his book on “The Law and the Constitution ”—

But if you have the opportunity in Parliament, you do not want it in a Bill.

Let me just finish the quotation—

That is not affected by this Bill.

Let me develop my argument. I am indicating that these are the principles which should allow an adequacy of criticism. It is essential to the democratic principle. So far the hon. the Minister’s question is concerned it is not sufficient to allow it in Parliament only. Surely people are entitled to criticize in public; surely the hon. the Minister when he was in Opposition never hesitated to criticize in public.

Everywhere.

Quite so. That is what the principle is, and I quote this because it is very important to remember at this stage that when we are examining the contents of this Bill, it is not the first or the only bit of legislative encroachment on the civil liberties of the subjects in South Africa, the civil liberties to criticize and to express opinions in public.

Sir, this Bill cannot be looked upon in isolation. as if it is passed in a vacuum, because it is in fact an addition to a system of political censorship which is already in operation under statutory law in South Africa. I cannot give an exhaustive list of such other legislation, but I will quote some examples without going into detail. But in all the Acts that I am now going to quote there is provision which is directed at restraining or suppressing the publication of comment and criticism in one way or another. The first of course is the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, then next, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, No. 8 of 1953, the Riotous Assemblies Act, No. 17 of 1956, the Native Administration Act, No. 38 of 1927, and lastly the Public Safety Act, No. 3 of 1953. The last-mentioned of course is only applicable in times when an emergency has been declared, but the power to suppress and to prohibit or censor what may or may not be criticized in public is contained in it.

And the United Party supported those Acts.

The United Party is not administering the law. The Minister’s side of the House is administering the law, and his side of the House is asking for more legislation. We are not asking for more legislation. We are asking for legislation to be confined to what the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) stressed and expressed as “vuile en smerige”, We are not asking for more restrictions, more restraint on the freedom of the individual, the freedom of the subject. I think the hon. the Minister of Information, who has now disappeared from the Chamber, was well advised to go after his inept interjection.

Of course all this other legislation, this system of political censorship (as I call it) which is already in operation, has had its effect on the public mind. Evidence of that I find in two quotations which I will give. The one is from “Acta Juridica” of 1960, where the writer says this—

Then the writer goes on to say this—

I go further in that regard and say, as I will indicate just now, that it has already been interpreted as being “politically objectionable ”. The second quotation which I think confirms the Point that I am trying to make, comes from the authors of “Civil Liberty in South Africa”, where they say this, referring to the General Law Amendment Act of 1953—

Mr. Speaker, I believe I am correct when I say that you will find in Article 19 of the earliest Transvaal Constitution an acknowledgment of the liberty of the Press. It expressly acknowledged the liberty of the Press. Sir, having regard to what I have said and what we have before us to-day, I think it is very clear that we have moved far along the road of intolerance of criticism under this Government. To show that that is so is the fact that we now have before us this Bill which is designed to bring about a systematic censorship and control of printed matter in South Africa, plus the other instances as I have indicated.

Had this piece of legislation been confined to the necessary censorship of what is indecent or obscene or offensive of public morals, not only would it have been a very acceptable bit of legislation but it would also have been a piece of workable legislation, and you would not have had to create this cumbersome body to deal with that. It would then have had workable ambits, and the legislation would have done what I feel sure both sides of the House want it to do because there is common cause in regard to that. But as I have indicated, if passed in its present form the legislation goes very much further in that it will extend quite considerably the present system of political censorship. Now I know that in saying that I put myself amongst those “slim mense” whom the hon. Minister belittled just now, when he attempted to show that they are not so “slim ”. I realize that I place myself amongst those people, But I also feel that I am in good company when I do that. But before I come to deal with the provisions of Clause 5, let me first deal with another point, the interpretation which I say has been given to the word “objectionable” which is contained in Section 21 of the Customs Act of 1955. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the power to ban the importation of anything which in the opinion of the Minister is indecent or obscene or objectionable in terms of that section has been used under the present Government not merely to ban those articles which are indecent and obscene and morally objectionable, but it has also been used by applying this general and vague word “objectionable” to include such publications as may be “politically objectionable”, if they in the opinion of the Minister in any way conflict with the policy of the Government.

Where and how?

Where do you get that?

Has Anna Stanton’s book been banned in this country or not?

That was before this Bill was published. It has got nothing to do with this Bill.

Why don’t you listen. I am telling you that that is the interpretation that is being applied under the existing law. Will it be any better when this becomes law?

Yes, because there will be an appeal to the courts.

So in other words, the hon. member for Vereeniging tacitly admits that the Government has abused the position under the old law, that possibly there has been abuse because there was no appeal to the courts, and now because there will be an appeal to the courts, there will be no abuse!

I find that a strange argument to advance.

Why? You are just sowing suspicion.

No, this did happen. Now I come to the definition in Clause 5. I admit that this is not the occasion to deal with detail, but it is the time when the principle of the clause as a whole must be considered, and I would like to make the position quite clear. For the purposes of the record I would like to read sub-section (2) of Clause 5—

1. (b) is blasphemous or is offensive to the religious convictions or feelings of any section of the inhabitants of the Republic;
2. (c) brings any section of the inhabitants of the Republic into ridicule or contempt;
3. (d) is harmful to the relations between any sections of the inhabitants of the Republic.

Let me say about this that in principle the terms of this clause, which I have read, are so wide and so vague as to offer no clear guidance to the public in general and to publishers in particular. And least of all, in my view, is it going to offer guidance to the Attorney-General whose onerous duty it will be to try and guess what these wide, vague terms imply in order that he should carry out his duty. I say that it is wholly unfair on an official of the State, such as an Attorney General, to leave him in this uncomfortable and unenviable position where he has got to administer a law with these vague and wide terms. Let me just give an example. I myself have no idea as to “what may be offensive to the religious feelings or convictions of witchdoctors”, but I do know that witchdoctors constitute “a section of the inhabitants of the Republic” in terms of this sub-section. So the only safe course that I can adopt is to say nothing and to write less about witchdoctors, because I have not got the faintest idea as to what may be offensive to a section of the community in terms of this clause. Sir, this is not a far-fetched or absurd test to apply to the provisions of this Bill because those provisions should be so specific and so clear that we all can know what they mean. But I can assure you that equally absurd conclusions can flow from the provisions of subsections (2) (c) and (d) which I have also read because they too are so wide and so vague as to offer no proper guide as to their meaning.

The hon. the Minister has seen fit to express some satisfaction and in fact pride about the provisions of sub-section (5) of Clause 5 which allows a form of exemption. But if you examine the exemption, you find that the principle of the exemption is this “The Board may on such conditions as it may deem fit … grant exemption ”. Speaking for myself I find conditional exemption of that kind in the hands of a body or a board such as this far more alarming than censorship in the hands of that same board.

You are very suspicious.

But I am entitled to be suspicious. What is more, I think it is the duty of the hon. the Minister to meet the situation in which suspicion can arise, whether from me or from anybody else, ensuring that this legislation should not be so framed that it can create suspicion. But I can see little justification for pride in provisions where you get conditional exemption. I think, as I say, that it is worse than censorship outright. Therefore the dangers which are inherent in legislative provisions of this kind bring to mind, not inappropriately, the warning by S. T. Coleridge in these words—

I think that is an appropriate quotation to give in view of the dangers and uncertainties which this type of legislation creates.

There are just two other clauses that I would like to deal with in principle. The first is Clause 6 which deals with the courts and which I find wholly unsatisfactory. It seems to place on a court the burden to establish a case instead of leaving it to the prosecution to do so, because this is what it says—I read it for the purpose of record—

1. (a) indecent or obscene if, in the opinion of the court, it has the tendency to deprave or to corrupt the minds of persons who are likely to be exposed to the effect of influence thereof.

In words that sounds very well, but of course what it does is two things: It makes a nullity of the doctrine of mens rea in criminal trials, and secondly, what it brings about is that the findings of whether a publication is indecent or obscene or repulsive or harmful to the public morals are to be based on the opinions of a court instead of being established by factual evidence in the same manner as any other crime or offence is required to be established. You see it conflicts with judicial principles and certainly with judicial practice, and it may well result in this that different judicial officers may hold different views and opinions and this certainly will lead to uncertainty and confusion in the administration of justice. So, I say, I find Clause 6 wholly unsatisfactory. It creates a position in which the courts should not be placed.

Then I come to Clause 8. This clause which deals with the functions and powers of the board, starts off by saying that “at the request of any person and payment of the prescribed fee. the board shall examine publications or objects which may be brought to its notice ”. This is what, as my hon. colleague has stated, brings about the creation of snoopers, persons who for purposes of their own give information to the authorities. I think it tries to put a cloak of respectability around those persons who for reasons of their own find delight in getting other people into trouble. This to my mind is a strange way in which a board has to fulfil the duties imposed on it. Because to my mind the Bill creates an unworkable situation, a provision of that nature has had to be included.

Before this Bill emerged from the Select Committee during the last session, we on this side of the House tried, but tried unsuccessfully, to remedy some of its major defects. The report speaks for itself and I need not enlarge upon it. But a further review of the basic provisions of this measure, serves to confirm my view that no amount of tinkering with its provisions can make the Bill an equitable one. No amount of tinkering with the provisions of this Bill can make it one which would satisfy one’s instincts for justice, one’s instincts for tolerance of political criticism, and above all one’s instincts for balancing power against safeguards and restraints against liberty. I think it is an unsatisfactory Bill, it is one with some merit but much demerit, and that in its present form it should be rejected by this House.

In the first place, I heartily want to thank the hon. the Minister for having introduced this legislation. It is only logical that whereas last year he laid the basis for the sound education of our children, he should now come with this Bill to protect our children against moral erosion. I want to thank him heartily.

From the two speeches made by hon. members opposite it is very clear that the United Party wants there to be no control over publications. Whether it is this Bill, or whether the Minister comes with other legislation, they will always find an objection because it is clear that they want no control at all.

Nor do they want to state an alternative.

In connection with every measure introduced by the Government dealing with South Africa and its people, we have had opposition from them. The hon. member over there and his other colleagues have now been riding for 14 years in the same old jalopy which has only one gear left, the reverse gear, and they have become so accustomed to driving in reverse that they have lost all sense of vision; they no longer see a future; they just look backwards and they do not want to accept any legislation designed to safeguard the future. Hence this attitude of theirs. They remind me of a cartoon I saw in the Cape Argus a few years ago. In the 17th century a gentleman and a lady went for a walk on the beach at Muizenberg, and from the opposite direction two “strandlopers” approached, a man and a woman. The White gentleman and the lady were properly dressed, the woman covered right up to her neck in a crinoline, the man in silk stockings and knee-breeches, and next to them the two “strandlopers”, almost naked, and now in the 20th century a White man and a White woman again go for a walk, but dressed in bikinis, and two Coloureds approach, properly dressed. Now the attitude of the United Party reminds me of the United Party under General Hertzog, properly dressed politically and now in bikinis, the only difference being that that Coloured woman on Muizenberg beach was shapely. I said that I was grateful to the Minister for having introduced this Bill, because it will protect particularly the Afrikaans child. Because I want to expand on that in my speech, and in view of the lateness of the hour, I wish to move—

I second.