I move as an unopposed motion—

I second.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, before the debate was adjourned yesterday, I accused the United Party of always travelling in reverse gear when we have important legislation before the House. In the case of this legislation too which is regarded on all sides as being necessary and which should have been passed by this House a long time ago, the United Party is again moving in reverse after having made a swift about-face. The United Party members on the Select Committee assisted in passing a unanimous resolution that there should be control over undesirable publications and that steps should be taken in this regard. Now the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) has stated that there is a world of difference between that unanimous resolution of the Select Committee, namely, that action should be taken against undesirable publications, and this measure. Let us take it that that is so, that they accepted the principle that action should be taken against undesirable publications and that they support it wholeheartedly, but that they cannot agree with the details of the measure which is now before the House. If it is true that they accept the principle and only differ in regard to the details, I ask myself why the United Party has moved an amendment which seeks to kill not only this measure and its details but also its principle which they adopted unanimously on the Select Committee? Why are they now running away from the principle which they accepted and supported, seeing that they want to tell the public that they do support the principle of control? I say that they cannot take it amiss of me if I say that they are still travelling in reverse gear. The logical action of the United Party should be to support the Second Reading of this Bill, because we are dealing with its principle, a principle that they accepted and supported in the Select Committee, and at the Committee Stage, when the details are discussed, to come forward with logical arguments to try to amend the Bill so that it will appeal to them and so that it will be a better measure than this one. They cannot make the excuse that they have not had the time to frame the necessary amendments. They have had six months to do so—long enough—but they have not done so. They are following the easy but dishonourable way of completely rejecting for the sake of convenience a principle which they wholeheartedly supported. The United Party can therefore not take it amiss of me when I say that they are now rejecting a principle which they supported earlier on and made no secret of the fact. They are now seeking to deceive the public. They say that they are in favour of the principle but they do not agree with the details and then they move an amendment which, if adopted, will also cause the shipwreck of the principle.

What principle are you talking about?

If the hon. member still does not know what the principle is which is embodied in this measure, then we are quite correct in our assumption that they have not read this Bill and that they do not know what its contents are. I contend that the United Party did not want control right from the start. They supported that principle in the Select Committee to make the public believe that they wanted control but all the while they were wondering how they could avoid that principle and frustrate that resolution, which they have now done in this House by means of the amendment of the hon. member for Turffontein. I do not know why they are always trying to evade the issue, hoping to throw the public off the scent. They are always raising ghosts and creating mirages which simply amaze one. According to the two United Party speakers the status quo must be retained; the courts are there to ensure that undesirable literature is not distributed. This attitude of the United Party has once again been true to type. In connection with every necessary piece of legislation they say: The courts are there so why should there be legislation? It was precisely the same with the anti-communist measures. We know from experience how impracticable the proposals of the United Party are. We know that it can happen that these court trials can be prolonged indefinitely by all sorts of excuses. In other words, it is merely a covert way of frustrating the purposes of this measure and other measures. Mr. Speaker, if the public felt inclined to bring every case of undesirable publications and objects to the attention of the courts, our administration of justice would have time for nothing else but would have to give all its attention to these cases.

What will be the position if this measure is adopted and applied? The control board with its panel of assistants will consider undesirable publications, and anybody who feels aggrieved will have the right of appeal to the courts. Nowhere in the world will you find such a democratic and just measure as this one now before the House. I predict, however, that when this measure is applied, few people will go to court because firstly, the board will consider every case expertly and carefully, and secondly the publishers will very soon realize that this board is a body which is reliable in its judgment and decisions.

That brings me to the next mirage created by the United Party. The hon. member for Turffontein made the Board members out to be saboteurs of and fighters against literary and creative art. I hope that he is ashamed of himself for making the public suspicious in advance of those people who have to help in freeing South Africa from undesirable publications. I do not want to do him injustice. I think that he said yesterday that those works of art must now be judged by a group of “cranks”,

You are wrong again.

I say that it is a very reprehensive thing to cast suspicion at this stage upon people with outstanding qualifications—and we know from experience that the Minister will not appoint cranks—and to say that these are people who are out to make war against our artists. I think that it was a very unfortunate choice of the United Party to make the hon. member for Turffontein its first speaker because his speech proved one fact conclusively, namely that the hon. member was completely unqualified and unable to distinguish between the aesthetic and plain, vulgar pornography, between art and animal lust. I think that the attitude of the hon. member in the House yesterday and the reaction of the United Party to what he said compels me to apply Kant’s definition of tragedy to him! He so much wants to but he cannot! The hon. member is also very worried about the Shaws and the other great writers in our literature who will now apparently be destroyed by this measure. The hon. member is apparently not aware of the fact that if a Willem Kloos cries out in ecstasy: “Ik ben een God in’t diepst van mijn gedachten” (I am a God in the depths of my thoughts), it has a high aesthetic value, but place those same words in the mouth of a brawling street urchin and they become blasphemous. The board members will immediately be able to distinguish … [Interjection.] Complaints do not help. The whole plea of the hon. member yesterday was that we wanted to destroy everything in our literature; that we wanted to appoint inquisitors, and I want to prove that they do not know what is going on. As I said, the board will immediately be able to distinguish—and I want the hon. member for Turffontein to listen carefully to this— between the Skoppensboer of a man like Eugene Marais and a literary effort on the part of the hon. member who seeks to make the same expression. I want to mention another example. The Vogeland Park in Oslo is the life’s work of the greatest sculptor in Norway. Prim visitors there will immediately forget that they are looking at naked images because that sculptor is so great that on the contrary one forgets completely that one is looking at naked images and one immediately notices the attitudes and the straining muscles symbolical of what is finest and greatest in man.

[Inaudible.]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, cast your pearls before swine. No one would ever dream of branding that great work of Vogeland as being indecent or undesirable. On the contrary, it is one of the finest and most valuable cultural treasures of Norway.

The hon. member alleged further that this legislation proves the decadence of our moral views and the refining influence of our churches because he asked repeatedly: Is it because our churches are powerless in this connection that they have not succeeded in their purpose and so our moral level has dropped? I take the greatest exception to that reprehensible remark. The hon. member should rather leave our churches and our moral views out of the tirades he holds in this House. It is precisely because our moral instincts and the high calling of our churches revolt against those undermining influences that this measure is now so necessary. It is precisely because we want to protect it, because we realize what that high calling of our churches is, because our moral views are on such a high plane, that we refuse to allow our spiritual treasures to be eroded. Mr. Speaker, a farmer who makes a fire-break is not considered to be unwise, to be of a low moral standard; he is not accused of retrogression but is praised for his great devotion and sensible preparedness in respect of those things which he owns and which he holds dear. He wants to guard and protect his treasures against those things which will destroy them. The hon. member for Turffontein does not want to take precautions. No, he wants that fire to flare up across the whole of South Africa and he does not care how scorched the spiritual aspects of our people become. The United Party is also very concerned about the liberties of the individual. This measure will now curtail that so-called freedom of the individual and we will be made to look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. They want everyone to be able to say and do what they want to; it makes no difference if they have a tendency towards the superficial. In my humble opinion the greatest and the really only valuable individual liberty in a civilized country is the inalienable right of every citizen and child to stand his ground without his morals and spiritual strength being exposed to erosion. That is a freedom of which we can be proud. However, freedom means absolutely nothing to the hon. member and he will rejoice if we permit that licentious freedom which he envisages to destroy this one valuable freedom. I say that it is the duty of this Government—and it considers it its duty— to protect that freedom of the people and therefore this measure is before the House now. True to type, the United Party is opposing this measure. Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether hon. members opposite realize how this sort of publication, pornography, has already left its mark upon a large number of our people, and I do not know whether they realize that it is easier to prevent that erosion than to try and rehabilitate someone who already carried that mark on his soul. A measure such as this should have been introduced in the early 30’s. I was teaching on the Rand in the early 30’s and in that particular school there was a class which was simply incorrigible. The woman teacher taking the class had a nervous breakdown. The principal was not able to control that class and as a last resort the desks in that classroom were examined and we discovered that, without exception, each of those desks contained pornography of the worst kind. When the parents were spoken to individually they were amazed that their children were in possession of such things and after inquiry and investigation it appeared that one girl was responsible for the degeneration of that whole class.

Was it Fyn Goud?

How old were the children?

I hope that the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore), who was an inspector of schools, will listen to this.

I merely asked how old the children were.

About 14 or 15. It was discovered then that one girl was responsible for the degeneration of that entire class, and this proves that the hon. member for Turffontein and the United Party were hopelessly wrong when they tried to prove yesterday that things were not so bad, when the hon. member wanted to prove from the Cronje Report that only a limited number of books were banned. That one girl ruined a whole class. I say that we cannot allow even one girl to be influenced by these things which we are trying to avoid. During the recess I tried to ascertain—which the hon. member did not do; he did not do his homework—how widespread these articles were in certain centres, and anyone knows that in our large centres one can walk into any café and find pornography of the worst kind amongst the soft-cover books; anyone can buy them. One need not read a book to know what its contents are; one merely has to look at the first page to have an indication of what can be expected. I was standing near a cafe to see how many of those books were sold, and I was surprised. I came across a photographic album and according to what I was told, it is fairly widespread—a photographic album of naked figures—but it was very clear that the photographers did not have as their aim an exhibition of the beauty of the human body; the most sensual details were emphasized and anyone knowing anything of art realized it immediately. Must we allow this type of thing to be distributed amongst our people? A hotel-owner in Durban showed me a package of photographs.

You keep interesting company.

I hope that the public, not only the Afrikaans-speaking people but also the English-speaking people, will note the attitude and the views of the hon. member for Yeoville (Mr. S. J. M. Steyn). This hotel owner contended that the book was widely distributed for sale in the bars of Durban at a considerable price. The unfortunate thing is that some of those photographs find their way to some of our school children, and now the hon. member for Yeoville wants to joke about it.

What were you doing with such things?

I was serving on a Select Committee which was responsible for this Bill.

Why did you take it from a bar?

I did not take it from a bar. The hon. member should have been listening. I said that a hotel-owner told me about it and showed me the photographs, but the hon, member is so little interested in the spiritual welfare of his nation that he does not even take the trouble to listen; he wants to joke about it. I appeal to the Opposition not to sow suspicion outside in connection with this matter. We must look after the children of South Africa because they are the responsible citizens of to-morrow. It is the bounden duty of this Government and I think it is also the duty of the Opposition to consider this matter in a more serious light. I do not think that the hon. Minister or anyone on this side will contend that this measure is perfect; far from it; but I say that it is at least a start to prove our goodwill and determination to keep South Africa clean. If we experience difficulties in the future it is also the right and privilege of the Opposition to bring them to the attention of this House and if those proposed amendments are generally accepted, they will become part of this measure. No one is perfect. But the Opposition must not come along here with this attitude where we are making a start, an honest effort after so many years to give South Africa something to protect our nation against this foreign and degenerating influence.

When we were on the Select Committee we received a very large number of memoranda, in all up to about 50, and I do not think there was one single memorandum, whether it came from the Institute of Race Relations, the Society of Newspaper Editors or the Dutch Reformed Church, which did not advocate that there should be a law against obscene publications, and when, as the hon. member indicated, the United Party voted that there should be a law against such publications, that is all that our vote meant. It meant no single whit of approval for this particular Bill before the House. In fact, we were appalled at this Bill from the beginning. We found that this Bill when it came before us the first time was even slightly better than it was when it emerged ultimately from the Select Committee, after certain changes had been made by the Minister himself.

This particular Bill is supposed to deal with undesirable publications. Sir, if ever there was a publication printed in the Republic of South Africa which was undesirable, it is this very Bill before us to-day. It is a shabby and a sanctimonious measure. It is another surrender by the Government to the prejudice and the ignorance of the iconoclasts and the suppressors of free speech and enlightenment in our country. Mr. Speaker, this Bill is a bad Bill for three main reasons. First of all, most censorship is inherently bad and in this Bill the bad features overshadow the good; secondly, much greater powers than in the past—most of them unnecessary—are given to the Minister and his powerful new board, a secret cabal of inquisitors and snoopers into the private actions of the country’s citizens.

Thirdly, Sir, this Bill offers no solution to existing problems in regard to censorship such as the abundance of restrictive laws, the overlapping of administrative bodies administering these laws and also the different norms and the different definitions of “undesirability” in these different Acts.

Sir, with your permission I should like to test this Bill against the background of these defects I have mentioned. Firstly, I stated that this Bill was bad because most censorship is bad. There is no need for me to mention instances in history where censorship has led to wars, to difficulties, to internal unrest, from the time of the Roman Emperors, through the Middle Ages, under the Stewarts, and in Russia to-day. Censorship does not bring peace, censorship does not bring satisfaction. Too many of the ancestors of those of us who sit here to-day had to fight for freedom of speech in past centuries, and many of them died for that principle. Sir, censorship is of three kinds. There is political censorship, there is religious censorship and there is censorship directed against obscene publications. Unfortunately this Bill does not stress the third one but it does contain important aspects of the first two, that is, political and religious censorship.

You are talking nonsense.

Let the hon. member read Clause 5 (2) (c) and (d) which state that a publication “shall be undesirable if it brings any section of the inhabitants of the Republic into ridicule or contempt, or is harmful to the relations between any sections of the inhabitants of the Republic ”. Sir, why should ridicule be outlawed? Surely ridicule is a legitimate weapon of political controversy. Quite often the object of ridicule is itself so ridiculous, like the Nationalist Party and the Government, that the weapon of ridicule need not even be used; only the facts need be used in describing them. Sir, are cartoons in weekly papers to be censored under this Bill? Sir, may I read to you a statement by a very important Afrikaans writer, Mr. Bartho Smit in Dagbreek en Sondagnuus of 27 January. This, of course, is the paper of which the hon. the Prime Minister is the chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. Bartho Smit says—

Then he goes on to sav—

This is an important South African writer, who expresses these views. Sir, when it comes to the provision in the Bill that a publication can be forbidden if it is harmful to the relations between sections of the inhabitants, I can think of no more legitimate object for banning than this Government itself which by its own measures, introduced over the past 15 years, has done nothing whatsoever to improve relations between the different sections of the inhabitants of this country. This Bill, I believe, aggravates political censorship which already exists in this country. We do not believe in such censorship.

I claim that this Bill also sins in that it is open to being used for the purpose of imposing religious censorship. (Clause 5 (2) (b) defines undesirable publications as including those which are " offensive to the religious convictions or feelings of any section of the inhabitants of the Republic ”. Now, Sir, this too can have an extremely wide application. Would a butcher or a restaurant advertising meat for sale and consumption on a Friday not be offending the susceptibilities of Roman Catholic supporters? Would somebody who advocated the playing of tennis or golf on a Sunday not be offending the religious susceptibilities of certain people in South Africa? May I ask in all sincerity whether the writings of honest rationalists, humanists and free-thinkers are to be banned, simply because of people like Bertrand Russell who occasionally attacked existing relations? Can a Native witchdoctor object to a treatise against polygamy? Sir, this is not far-fetched. Already prominent writers have expressed concern on this score. May I again read to you what Mr. Bartho Smit, an important South African writer said on this issue—

This Bill can be misused for religious censorship. We must remember that in our country, under this present Government, censorship is already in very bad odour—even under existing legislation. This Bill does not improve the position, it worsens it. The law is made more stringent, the power of the blue-stocking brigade is intensified in this Bill. Under the present measure, Sir, we already find that works of such famous authors as Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Zola, Sartre, Truman Capote have been banned. Recently Fracoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse was banned in the English but not in the French version, presumably on the grounds that people who read French are more moral than those who do not. The classic instance was the banning of the book, with what I suppose they regarded as a suggestive title, “Black Beauty”. They found out later that “Black Beauty” was a horse and that the book was an animal one.

Mr. Speaker, do you realize that there is such chaos in the censorship department that the hon. the Minister does not even readily know what books and what periodicals have been banned? In 1959 I put a question to the hon. the Minister asking him about certain American periodicals which were banned in this country. I asked him which weekly, which fortnightly and which monthly American periodicals were banned. He replied that his records were not kept in such a way as to enable him to reply to me in that form. In reply to another question of mine he told me that books were filed under their titles and not under the names of the authors. If that is the case we might indeed find one day the gentleman who wrote a book about Ulysses, called Homer, being banned instead of the other writer of Ulysses and not James Joyce. We might perhaps find that the book of some or other professor or geography is banned because the title of that deals with, say, the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Sir, it seems to me that the hon. the Minister has an Index Expurgatorius, but the thing has not got an index. He cannot find out what he has banned.

My second objection is that vast new powers are taken under this Bill. It threatens Press censorship, whatever the hon. the Minister may say. It is true, as provided for in the Bill, that newspapers belonging to the Newspaper Press Union are excluded from its provisions. But there is a host of smaller newspapers, weekly newspapers, who do not belong to the Newspaper Press Union which are faced with all the terrible implications of this Bill. They are not excluded. They have not got a Press Board as the large daily newspapers will have. Although, Sir, I might say in parenthesis, that I sometimes doubt the value of this particular Press Board. In September I laid a charge before the Press Board, with an affidavit and a cheque, against the Transvaler, and I have not as yet received a reply as to what was decided.

My concern is for the weeklies who are not members of the National Press Union, dozens of useful publications performing a necessary function in a country where there are so many separate special interests in matters of politics, labour and race. They will come under the full force of the ban. I, my self, write two weekly political articles in a political weekly called Weekblad, which is not a member of the National Press Union. Am I to be censored for bringing the National Party and the Nationalist Government and the hon. the Prime Minister into ridicule—which I hope I succeed in doing? If so, he and his whole censorship cabal can. in the American expression, “go jump in the lake”, I do not. for a moment think that the Government have given up their obnoxious plans against the Press. The statements made by hon. members opposite in the past are too menacing, too clear, to allow of any doubt on that score. I have a few of them here. On 1 August 1961 the hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Eric Louw, stated (he referred to a Press report that the managing director of an Athens newspaper and two of his assistants had been sent to jail for causing alarm and despondency)—

On 2 September 1961 the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) stated—

Is this Bill the result of that? The Minister of Bantu Education, Mr. Maree, said in September 1961 in Natal that—

Mr. Speaker, part of the great powers to which I object in this Bill is contained in the wideness of the very involved, fog-bound definition of what is undesirable or harmful to public morals. In Section 6 the courts are given no discretion. They are told when to decide when a publication or object is objectionable. For instance “if it deals in an improper manner with murder ”. How does one deal in a proper manner with murder, Sir? “If it deals in an improper manner with lawlessness”, then it is objectionable. I can think of many measures improperly dealing with lawlessness in the Transkei for instance, measures which will fall under this particular clause of the Bill. If it deals in an improper manner with tippling or drunkenness then it can also come under this ban. Even worse. Sir, Clause 6 says that “in determining whether any matter is harmful to public morals no regard shall be had to the intention of the person who produced it ”. The hon. member for Vryheid (Mr. D. J. Potgieter) spent a large part of his speech drawing a distinction between, for example, Eugene Marais’ Skoppensboer and Skoppensboer if written by a member on this side. The Bill itself says that the board must take no cognizance of the intention itself. Let me read what Mr. Bartho Smit said in this connection. He said this—

Such a publication or object can be censored solely if, in the opinion of the Court, “it is likely to be disgustful” to persons who are likely to read or see it. Sir, if Mother Grundy’s little Nats see a nude study in an art gallery and they find it “disgustful”, must all decent people who can appreciate art be precluded from seeing that particular painting? Even the hon. Minister himself could have got into some difficulty in the past when a nude statue was erected on the Population Register Building, apparently with his original approval. Only after some person, some predikant or other, had found it “disgustful” was it decided to remove that particular statue. The Bill speaks about “disgustful ”. I do not know why it cannot be “disgusting ”. I do not know whether there is such a word as “disgustful” in the dictionary.

I said the definition is wide. Look at it, Sir. You will find separate definitions of what is objectionable and undesirable. You find those in Clauses 5, 6, 10 and 12. Do you know, Sir. how many categories of undesirability I counted in this Bill? Not ten, not 20, there are no less than 97 categories of undesirability in this Bill. You may ask what I propose, Sir. We gave our solution in the Select Committee. We deemed that a short definition of “undesirability” would prove to be the best. Let me read how Clause 5 (2) should read in plain and simple language: “A publication or object shall be deemed to be undesirable if it is indecent or obscene or is offensive or harmful to public morals.” After that it should be left to the courts to decide what the scope of those words are.

Let me mention to the hon. the Minister the example of what Britain has done. In 1959 the British Houses of Parliament passed the Obscene Publications Act. That was after an old Act had become obsolete, an Act which was passed in 1857. This Act contains only five simple sections. Where the Minister's Bill needs 800 words to define what is obscene and undesirable the British Act does it in less than 70 words. Let me read it—

Why must we have this very wide definition in this Bill? Why could not a short and simple definition have sufficed? Why the rambling verbiage and mental garbage of this Bill’s definition? Sir, I am not alone in condemning the wide ambit of the defining clauses. I have here a leading article from a prominent newspaper not unknown to this House. I read from the leading article which appeared in the Burger of Monday, 30 April 1962, in which reference is made to certain definitions in the old Bill, which are also contained in the new Bill—

And not these 97 different things. Then the Burger continues—

I therefore ask the hon. the Minister to cut the definition in this Bill. If he does not wish to listen to me let him listen at least to the Burger, even if it is a Cape and not a Transvaal paper. Let me read the words of another promiment South African in the publishing business, Mr. J. J. Human. He wrote this in Dagbreek—

That is a prominent publisher in the Afrikaans publishing field said that, Sir.

We also object to the heavy penalties under this Bill. We object to the fact that the courts are told that they must impose a minimum penalty. We do not object to a maximum penalty, we object to a minimum penalty.

My third objection to this Bill, Sir, which I stated originally, is that it is no cure whatsoever. no acceptable substitute, for recognizing the ills in existing legislation and existing measures. What are these ills? We all agree that we already have too many laws imposing censorship and restricting free speech in our country to-day. There are no less than 15 important Acts and Ordinances dealing with the matter on our Statute Book. Only two significant ones are repealed in this particular Bill. And what do we have in their place? The present Bill— which is much worse! In other words, the writer has, when he puts his pen to the paper, to consider whether, even if he escapes under this Bill, he cannot still be prosecuted under the Native Administration Act of 1928, the Electoral Act of 1946, the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950, the Public Safety Act of 1953, the Criminal Procedure Act of 1955, the Riotous Assembly Act of 1957, the Defence Act of 1957, the Post Office Act of 1958, the Prisons Act of 1959, the Children’s Act of 1960 and the Sabotage Act of last year. Small wonder that well-known Afrikaans writers, such as the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) are cracking under the strain. Perhaps they should, like the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) stick to translation only, but indeed even in that case the hon. member for Standerton might find himself in difficulties. He has made an excellent translation of “Hamlet” into Afrikaans, but I should like to check how accurately he translated the following words …

Order! The hon. member is going too far.

I shall leave that point, Sir. The point I am trying to make is that there so many measures on the Statute Book to-day, apart from this, which already deal with censorship and which already give the Government wide powers in regard to obscene and undesirable publications, that indeed to have a Bill such as this, in addition, is unnecessary.

The second ill that this Bill does not cure is the fact that we have far too many norms, far too many standards in all these different Acts. For instance, when the Post Office confiscates a certain publication, it does so under a particular section in the Post Office Act. When the Customs official holds back a paperback, he does so under the Customs Act. When the Censor Board or the Publications Board, as it is misnamed, acts under this Bill, it does so under the norm to end all norms, the definition to end all definitions. Sir, this Bill contains not only one norm, it contains three different norms, norms to be applied by the one board. Clauses 5 and 6 lay down what is objectionable in regard to publications and objects only. Clause 10 says what is objectionable in regard to films—and the two differ widely A film which depicts in a so-called offensive manner “scenes of violence involving White and non-White”—like Joe Louis knocking out Max Baer—cannot get its certificate, though a book describing the fight would. A. film may not even depict in a so-called offensive manner “controversial politics” while writers, such as the editor of the Transvaler, may do so. In addition to the two separate norms, there is still a third one, that for public entertainment, under Clause 12. Under this a producer may not stage a play which, I quote again, “may have the effect of bringing any section of the inhabitants into ridicule or contempt”, That, Sir, may indeed spell the end of some of the excellent stage revues we have had in South Africa during the past years. The problem of separate standards is indeed aggravated by this particular Bill. Very little is improved. Even the avenues of appeal against the decision of the board remain different. An author can appeal to the courts, but the film industry can only appeal to the Minister.

At their request.

At their request, I admit, Sir. But even if that is the case, the fact that the film industry prefers it that way cuts little ice with me. I believe, Sir, that this provision has been used by the film industry to keep some really excellent, particularly Continental films, out of this country. I would rather see the film industry settle this issue in the court and bring these excellent films to South Africa.

Hardest hit of all has been the book trade. I have not the time to go into the monumental stupidity of banning a book because it costs less than 50c, unless the Minister, of course, allows that book to go through. It is no use the Minister telling me, as he probably will, that reputable publishers of paperbacks will be excluded. There are reputable publishers who publish things which I may not regard as pornography but which the hon. the Minister does. I believe the Penguin Books are bringing out an edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover ”. I believe that Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” is appearing in a paperback edition in the United States of America, published by a very reputable publisher.

In this connection I want to say that the Minister has treated the book trade in a highhanded—and I am sorry to have to say it— in a discourteous manner. Some months ago the Book Traders’ Association sent a deputation to see the hon. the Minister of Finance on the Customs Act, which is also dealt with in this particular Bill, probably in regard to the importation of books. They were courteously received by the Minister of Finance; they were given a good reception and a fair hearing. At the end of the discussions, the hon. the Minister of Finance thanked the deputation for the assistance it had given him. Then the book trade, expecting the same assistance, tried to approach the hon. the Minister of the Interior. Naturally they expected equally fair treatment. They drew up an outstanding and scholarly memorandum based on wide experience and they submitted it to the hon. the Minister in July 1962 with a special request that the Minister should meet a deputation from the Book Traders’ Association so that they could explain their difficulties in regard to this Bill. That request was refused. A request was made a second time; for the second time the book traders were refused. The Minister’s excuse in the first instance was to the effect that there was no point in his seeing the deputation then; he first had to study the whole problem more fully. At that stage, I believe, he had already tabled the third version of this particular Bill —and he still needed time to study it! When the hon. the Minister was approached once more in September by the Book Traders’ Association, they received a reply in November—I admit that is about par for a Government Department to reply—that the hon. the Minister was on holiday. The letter was sent to the Department in September; was the hon. Minister on holiday in September as well? I should like to know. He was probably visiting the Interior, Sir.

The book trade was however assured that a new draft Bill would be tabled in January, containing amendments and that he would then consider a memorandum from them. Well, Sir, this Bill has been tabled. The changes made are of very little moment to the book trade. They, in fact, have nothing to add to. the memorandum, which at the moment is still their case, and which is at the moment before the Minister. They see no reason why they should alter that original memorandum. That memorandum still stands. Now I ask the hon. Minister: What is he going to do about that memorandum? I challenge him to meet and face these men of influence and importance in the publishing world. They can promise him the courtesy he denied them.

So, Sir, we enter this year of 1963 with a new cloud of man-made smog engulfing us, stifling further those who wish to breathe free air in our country. Thank goodness. Sir, the voice of reason has not been stilled completely. Thank goodness there are still writers, and among them Afrikaans writers, who can protest. Let me conclude by quoting two more of them. The first is Professor Rob Antonnissen, professor of philosophy, professor of literature and professor in Afrikaans and Netherlands. He wrote—

I want to read the words of a prominent Afrikaans writer, Mr. Bill (W. A.) de Klerk. He is a Nationalist. This is what he says—

I conclude with one final quotation and I hope the House will forgive me for quoting a writer whose name is so closely associated with the fight for freedom of speech. He was a Calvinist and a Republican. But no speech on the defence of freedom can be complete without a few words from the Areopagitica—John Milton. I should like to conclude with these words—which have a special reference to the members of this proposed board of publication. John Milton wrote—

With the indulgence of the House, I would like to rise on a matter of personal explanation. I only a few minutes ago received the Hansard copy of my speech of yesterday and I find that I have made a misstatement of fact in the heat of the debate by attributing certain actions to the hon. member of Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) which are not correct. My Hansard report reveals that Mr. B. Coetzee made the following interjection in the course of my speech—

To which I replied—

Mr. Speaker, that is not a correct statement of the position. I have now had an opportunity of studying the resolutions in the Report of the Select Committee and I find this to be the position: “I moved the motion that the Booksellers’ Association and the Central News Agency should be heard,” to which the hon. member for Vereeniging moved an amendment “at a later stage if it appears to be necessary ”. The amendment was put by the chairman of the Select Committee for which the hon. member for Vereeniging voted, whilst I voted against, and the motion as a whole was passed unanimously. I regret if I ascribed wrongly actions to the hon. member for Vereeniging, and I apologize.

I accept what the hon. member says and I thank him for it. I will deal just now with the implications of the whole matter, but I quite accept now that he did not mean that I told an untruth to this House.

Mr. Speaker, we have now had three speeches of the Opposition side and, Sir, not a single attempt has been made at an objective analysis of this Bill. We only had one political tirade after another, and their objections, same as the objections of those writers who were interviewed by Dagbreek, have got nothing to do with the merits of this Bill. They dream up certain unjustified deductions, they think of unjustified possibilities, and then they start fighting those deductions and fighting those possibilities. They are not fighting this Bill! As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I have never been more puzzled in my life, because I cannot see how the United Party can oppose this Bill. Because this Bill is what they have always been asking for. When dealing with this type of legislation in regard to publications, they have certain principles and they made certain demands, and judging by those principles and by those demands, this Bill is far, far superior than the present position. This Bill complies with their demands far, far better than the existing legislation. I am going to attempt to prove, and I am quite satisfied that I am going to prove even to the satisfaction of the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) that this Bill is exactly what he wants, that this Bill is in accordance with the principles he lays down. I am going to ask him to remain in the House during the whole of my speech which won’t be too long; it will be a punishment to him, because firstly, I am going to give him blazes, then I am going to give him a fartherly lecture on law, commonsense and his own principles.

Mr. Speaker, if I could give this Bill an alternative title I would give it the following title: A Bill to provide for the rule of law in dealing with publications.

What a travesty!

But before I deal with that, I would like to come back to what the hon. member for Turffontein referred to. I won’t pursue the whole matter now. He has now put the matter in the right perspective. But I want to remind him of this: That all that happened on 9 March, on 9 March we decided that we would now deal with Mr. Hattingh’s evidence and with the suggestions he made and that then we would decide to call the booksellers if necessary, that is to say the booksellers and the big importers of publications, the newspapers, etc. If necessary we would allow them to come and give evidence before us. Now the hon. member tried to make out that these people did not get a chance to give evidence. The hon. member who has just sat down came with something that the booksellers sent to the Minister and he asked why those people did not come to give evidence before the Select Committee. On 9 March we decided that if necessary they could be called to give evidence. Neither the hon. member for Turffontein, nor the hon. member for Orange Grove, nor anybody else thought it necessary for those people to come and give evidence. Mr. Speaker, they had a new Bill before them.

The Booksellers’ Association had a new Bill before them and all those previous memoranda dealt with a completely different Bill. All the distributors, the Newspaper Press Union, everybody else had a new Bill before them, and on 9 March we decided that if necessary they could come and give evidence. Not one of the members of the Opposition on that Select Committee asked that anyone of those people should come and give evidence before us. Why not? Because this Bill excluded all the objectionable parts, objectionable in the eyes of those people in the previous Bill.

The Committee was not empowered to hear their evidence without an invitation.

Quite so, it was in our power to invite people to come and give evidence.

Nobody could apply to give evidence.

But it was in our power to ask them to come and give evidence. Why did not that hon. member move that the National Press Union should come and give evidence? Why did not the hon. member for Orange Grove move that the Booksellers’ Association should come and give evidence? And, Mr. Speaker, all these big associations, the importers, etc., had to do was to ask us to come and give evidence. In every case where that happened, either myself or the chairman would have given them the opportunity to come and give evidence.

May I ask you a question?

No, not now. The hon. member for Turffontein did not think it was necessary. At the end of the work of that Select Committee that hon. member was fairly satisfied with the Bill. I will prove it. And I say: When all these big distributors, when the Booksellers’ Association, when the importers had the complete Bill in front of them, they saw no necessity to come and give evidence; they were satisfied with it.

They were not totally satisfied.

If they were not satisfied, why did they not ask to come and give evidence?

As I will prove later on, it was under pressure that the hon. member for Turffontein changed his opinion about this Bill. Sir, the hon. member said in his speech—

Quite true. Those opinions were expressed. But he was not of that opinion. The hon. member thought that additional legislation was necessary. That has been quoted, but I will quote it to him again. The hon. member for Wakkerstroom (Mr. Martins) moved in the Select Committee—

“New” legislation.

Good, I will take it on your basis; I will fight on your own battle-ground. Mr. Martins moved—

That motion was before the Select Committee saying that legislation was necessary. Why did not the hon. member for Turffontein at that stage move an amendment to this effect: “In the opinion of the Committee the present legislation is sufficient ”? Did he think at that time that the existing legislation was sufficient? Why when there was a motion that we should now proceed with new legislation; why did he and the hon. member for Orange Grove vote for it? Why did they not say: “No, we must not now …”

New legislation?

But this is the legislation we dealt with. Why, when there was a motion that we should go on and deal with this legislation, why did they not get up and say: No, we don’t want any new legislation; the present legislation is sufficient? What are the facts? The facts are that under the impact of the evidence we had before us, neither that hon. member nor the hon. member for Orange Grove, nor the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) would say that new legislation was not necessary. Under the impact of the evidence they were quite satisfied that new legislation was absolutely necessary. It was only after they had been brought under pressure from the English Press, from the Booksellers’ Association, from the big importers of this literature, it was only after they had been under pressure from those people that they changed their mind. They did not have the courage to stand by their decision that new legislation was necessary.

Nonsense!

After listening to the hon. member for Turffontein and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) and the hon. member for Orange Grove, I can only come to one conclusion and that is that they want no control at all. They now say that they are satisfied with present legislation. But I tell them that they are not satisfied with present legislation at all. Listen how the hon. member for Orange Grove this afternoon criticized present legislation. He criticized the banning of Earl Russell’s book and many other books. But those books were banned not under this Bill, but under existing legislation.

I am not satisfied with that either.

The hon. member is not satisfied with that either, and yesterday the hon. member for Turffontein said: “We are quite happy with the present legislation.” That is my point. That is why I say that they want no control. Remember: They want no new legislation and they are not satisfied with present legislation. In other words they want to abolish control completely, As a diversion I would just like to remind the hon. member for Orange Grove that he criticizes the hon. Minister because certain books that he considers to be classical works have been banned. Might I remind him that under the United Party, a classic like “Droll Stories” of Balzac was banned, not by the present Minister, but by the late Mr. Clarkson. But that only by way of diversion. I say that they are equally dissatisfied with the present legislation as they are with the legislation now before us. But I accuse the United Party and their speakers so far that in their approach to this Bill they are irresponsible, they are mischievous and that they act without any regard for the interests of the good name of South Africa. They read things into this Bill which will only be read into it by somebody who wishes South Africa no good.

I come to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South). He says—

Then he goes on—

He goes on to say—

He says—

He goes on to say—-

Now I throw it into his face that every one of those statements are untrue. I challenge him, as I challenged him yesterday in the course of his speech to show us one bit of evidence in one single clause in this Bill which can remotely be interpreted as an attempt to suppress or stifle criticism of the Government. When I challenged him in the course of his speech he said: “Give me a chance to develop my argument.” He never developed that argument. He made the blatant statement merely that this is political censorship. I say in view of what happened, of which he had full knowledge, that this statement that this is political censorship, that this is suppression of political criticism of the Government—I say that in view of what happened, and he had full knowledge of what happened, that that statement of his is a vicious, a hateful and an untruthful one.

Order!

What is the position? The written criticism of this Government comes to the extent of 99.99 per cent from the English language Press belonging to the National Press Union. There is hardly any other written criticism of the Government. All the criticism in this Parliament, all the criticism at political meetings will have no effect whatsoever if the English Press belonging to the National Press Union is not allowed freely to publish it. And, Mr. Speaker, the National Press Union, all those English language papers belonging to the Press Union, were explicitly excluded. How can the hon. member then say that this interferes with the right of freedom to criticize the Government? Mr. Speaker, this Government, this Minister, the Select Committee went out of their way to exclude any possible indication that there could be political censorship. They went out of their way and excluded all those papers which severely criticize this Government. But in the face of this, that hon. member tells the world that this Bill is Press censorship, this Bill interferes with the freedom of the Press, this Bill is an attempt to stifle criticism of the Government. I say it is impossible for a sane man to read this into this Bill. Only an enemy of this country with a distorted mind could read this into this Bill.

On a point of order …

Order! The hon. member should withdraw those words.

I withdraw. I say here that the Government went out of its way at the request of those papers and did so gladly, to exclude all of them from the operation of this Bill. Yet that hon. member has the audacity to come and say this is political censorship. Sir, it is often said that it is not what the Opposition says, but what the Government does that gives us a bad name overseas. But here is a classical example of how untrue that statement is. Here is a Bill which explicity prohibits interference with the Press that criticizes the Government. Note, this Bill explicitly prohibits any interference with the Press that criticizes this Government. But a leading member of the United Party, a previous Auditor-General tells the world that this Bill interferes with the freedom of that Press that criticizes this Government. The Bill excludes them. It is a classic example of how our bad name overseas is being initiated by the United Party in a most reckless way, hoping to make some miserable political capital out of it.

Then they say, as the hon. member for Orange Grove said what about the clause which says something to this effect “to bring any section of the public into ridicule ”? They say: That clause means political interference, because (that was the argument of the hon. member) if you ridicule the National Party, that is an offence. Sir, it is not the National Party who ask for the inclusion of this clause, it was not the Dutch Reformed Church which asked for the inclusion of this clause. It was not the Broederbond who asked for its inclusion, it was the Jewish Board of Deputies who asked for this clause. Here I have a memorandum of the Jewish Board of Deputies. They say—

Read the bottom of page 2.

Just have patience. I will read all that is relevant. They continue to say—

Then they say—

and with that I agree—

Then comes the crucial paragraph—

So they say that legislation is necessary. And then they give us an example of the type of thing that should be prohibited.

Read the last paragraph on that page.

My time is limited and it is not necessary, because all they do is to suggest a different wording, but the effect will be the same. In the Committee Stage we can deal with that again if necessary.

You have lost your point.

At least I have a point to lose, something the hon. member can never say of himself.

What is the type of thing the Jewish Board of Deputies want to prohibit by law? The writings of Johan Schoeman, the writings of Mr. Rudman of Natal—they want all those prohibited by law. This is their memorandum asking us specifically to let the law read so that these things can be prohibited. And then they refer to a certain writer in Sweden, and then they say the importation of all that stuff must be prohibited. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton: If there again should occur in this country an anti-Semetic campaign and all these unprincipled utterances should be made against the Jews, such as the Letters of the Elders of Zion and all that type of nonsense, is she in favour of that being prohibited by law?

I will give you my reply when I speak.

I am in favour of it. Is she? This was requested by the Jewish Board of Deputies and by nobody else.

To say that this Bill is designed against the political enemies of the Government is unbelievably irresponsible and blatant nonsense, bred in the diseased minds of people with an unreasonable hatred in their hearts. One should not really take any notice of it if the position were not that it does our country harm in the outside world.

I make a further statement. I challenge the Opposition with their criticism of this Bill. I say the criticism is intellectually dishonest because all their extravagant deductions, all the far-reaching possible dangers that they see can equally be read into the present legislation. This is what the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) said—

But that is the position under the present law. The hon. member for Turffontein said—

But that is the position under the present law. All art, all paintings can be prohibited and banned by the present Censor Board. He said that it was so terrible that all the books under 50c had to be passed by the Board. But does he not realize that the hon. Minister can exclude any book from overseas into this country? And then the hon. member says “Any crank can complain to the Board”, Of course any crank can complain to the Board. But any crank can complain to the Police. But neither the Police and neither the Board need take any notice of cranks. A crank yesterday complained about this Bill in Parliament and Parliament is not going to take notice of this complaint?

To whom does the hon. member refer?

Mr. Speaker, I leave it to you with your brilliant intelligence to make your own deduction.

Order! The hon. member should withdraw that insinuation against an hon. member.

I withdraw.

I say that this Bill should be welcomed. It is a great improvement on the present position. It is an improvement not for those people who want stricter control, but it is an improvement for those people on the other side of the House. It is an improvement for those who want enlightened control, as the Opposition calls it. Take the example of the Book Trades Association in the Cape Times this morning. They say this—

That may be so, but this Bill for the first time introduces the rule of law in dealing with publications. Sir, 95 per cent of the books dealt with by the booktraders come from overseas, and all those books can be banned by this Minister if he wants to do so. There is no rule of law. There is no appeal from his decision. There is no appeal to the courts. Under this Bill there is only one body which can say finally which books should be banned, the courts of this country. For the first time the rule of law is introduced. No longer can the Minister say what must be banned.

I will prove to the satisfaction of these people that this Bill is really what that hon. member wants, what the Cape Times wants, and what the Booksellers’ Association wants. So far under the present legislation the control of reading matter has been divided in two classes: Imported reading matter and locally produced reading matter. I don’t think I am wrong if I say that imported reading matter makes up 90 per cent of the consumption of reading matter in South Africa.

Not as high as that.

All right make it 80 per cent, or 81½ per cent. How is the bulk of the reading matter of this country dealt with? It is dealt with by the Minister and the Minister alone. Under the present legislation the Minister can exclude all that reading matter and nobody can appeal to the courts.

There is no control over internal stuff.

If the hon. member had listened, he would have heard that I said that reading matter in South Africa for control purposes is divided into two classes, imported reading matter and local reading matter, and I am now dealing with the one part. But I am not going to ask the hon. member any longer to try and understand what I am saying. It is quite clear that he is incapable of understanding a very simple matter. I say that 90 per cent of our reading matter is imported and under the present legislation, with which the hon. member there is quite satisfied, the Minister decides. It is imported subject to the whims of only one man. That is the position and I challenge the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) to say that that is not so. It is imported at the whim of the Minister. It has been so under United Party regime, and that is the position with which certain hon. members there say they are quite satisfied. Fortunately we have had good Ministers so far, but suppose. Sir, we were to get as a Minister Badenhorst Durrant—what a terrible thought. So I say under the present position, with which those members are quite happy the bulk of the literature consumed in this country is imported at the whim of only one man, and no appeal can be made to the courts.

And he listens to no advice?

He listens to advice and therefore he is very sensible about it, but he need not listen to the advice. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) said that this thing can be abused. Of course it can be abused. The fact of the matter and the legal position is that the Minister listens to advice but need not listen to it. He can say I do not want your advice; I am banning the book, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. That is the position in regard to the bulk of reading matter in this country. The position in regard to the locally produced literature is that only the courts can deal with it. The Minister cannot deal with it If you lay a complaint the courts can decide. I do not even think they can decide to ban the book; they can just decide to punish the writer or the publisher. Under this Bill a new classification is made. The old classification was imported reading matter on the one hand and locally produced reading matter on the other, and only locally produced literature, which forms a very small part of what we read in this country, has access to the courts, and the rest was at the whim of the Minister. Under this Bill a new classification is made, as follows. On the one side there are hard cover books, books over 50 cents free on board. For the sake of simplicity, I will call these the expensive books. In the other class are the soft cover books, under 50 cents, which I will call the cheap books. So under this Bill books are divided into two classes, cheap and expensive books. I hope the hon. member for Kensington (Mr. Moore) will continue laughing after he has listened further. The expensive books are absolutely free and nobody can finally interfere with them except the courts. Nobody can ban an expensive book, neither the Minister nor this new Board. The only body which can ban it will be the highest court of the land.

Now, what will happen in practice? In practice this new board will read these expensive books and if they come across something offensive they must advise the Attorney-General to institute a prosecution, but the latter need not institute a prosecution if he does not wish to do so. So the books which are considered by this board to be undesirable will now be considered by the courts if the Attorney-General agrees.

The Customs can still stop them.

Did you not serve on that Select Committee? How can you be so stupid? Where does it say that Customs can still stop a book? Of course they cannot stop it. The Customs Department does not come into it any more. They cannot stop any book in a hard cover or one more expensive than 50 cents.

Why did you not make a study of it before you spoke?

Consult the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) and ask him whether my statement is correct or not. Of course it is correct.

No.

Why did you not study Clause 20?

What will be the position in practice? In practice these castes will go to court, and the court will lay down the norm. In future when this Board deals with these books they will have to take that into consideration. So what will happen now is that the highest Court in the country will lay down the norm, the code. So what we will have in practice is that the rule of law will be our only censor.

Then there are the cheap publications. According to this Bill, there is a complete prohibition on the importation of these cheap publications. If any importer wants to import such books, he has to apply for a permit. If the permit is not granted, he has the right to go to court.

How often must he go to court?

He can go five or six or seven times and the court will then lay down the norm and then say no, this type of book cannot be excluded, and the board will be forced more or less to fall into line with those court decisions.

Now, why this new division into expensive and cheap publications? Because, firstly, the most undesirable literature in the country is being imported from overseas and is not locally produced. I want to refer to a memorandum which was received from Professor Cronje, which says this—

Now, all of the undesirable reading matter in South Africa, 90 per cent consists of these cheap editions. I would just like to refer to the evidence of Mr. Hattingh before the Select Committee, in which he says the following. I asked him: “In the case of more expensive books, do you find the percentage to be much smaller?”, and his reply was: “In the list of banned books published in 1956 I think only 50 or 60 hard-covered and more expensive books are found in the list which contain something like 4,000 titles.” So far less than 10 per cent—about 1 per cent—are hard covers, and the rest are these cheap editions which constitute the undesirable literature. What will happen now? These importers must now put these books before the Board of Control and cannot import them without a permit from the board. Firstly, it will be very easy to administer, and the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) is completely wrong when he says that this big organization had many objections but did not give evidence, because they knew that even on their own evidence it could easily be proved that this was easy to administer. Because, firstly, the importers will have to pay a fee to put a book before the board. So the importers of these books, the vast bulk of which are over-runs and returns, and which are dumped in this country to-day at a price of one or two cents—the importers will firstly be their own censors and will exclude the bulk or a great deal of that type of literature. Secondly, they will put only those books which they think are not undesirable before the board, and the board has many ways of dealing with that. The board can, e.g. decide that all the books of Agatha Christie may come in and give a permit for it. There is a provision in this Bill for a blanket permit. What is the position now? For the first time in the history of our control of reading matter in this country the courts come into the picture. For the first time what the courts will decide over a period of years will become the norm. Therefore I am completely justified in saying that what the courts are going to decide eventually, the rule of law, will eventually be your censorship in South Africa. There is no censorship by this board for the higher-priced books; they may not touch those. They can touch the lower-priced books, and there is pre-publication censorship, but that again can be tested in the courts. After a year or two the courts will lay down a norm which will have to be followed by the Board of Control. Sir, to read into that an attempt to stifle any criticism and to stifle the free flow of books, to interfere with literature, is the biggest nonsense in the world. I want to say this. I want to congratulate the Minister on this Bill. It is an excellent Bill. If this Bill is analysed and all sorts of ghost stories are not dreamt up about it, you will see that this is a Bill which brings the rule of law into our dealings with publications. [Time limit.]

Mr. Speaker, apart from the vehemence with which he put his arguments, we got only a series of half-truths from the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee), and I want to expose immediately some of the half-truths to which we have been subjected this afternoon. I will start by mentioning the last one.

The hon. member for Vereeniging has given us the impression that the Bill we are considering to-day is a liberalizing Bill; it is a Bill to improve the existing position and to introduce the rule of law into the whole question of censorship in this country, and generally speaking it is a Bill which people who want more progressive measures should welcome. This is the same sort of thing that we got in the titles of other Bills which have been presented to this House, like the Abolition of Passes Bill and the Extension of University Education Bill, which removed non-Whites from the Universities, and the Promotion of Bantu Self-Development Bill, the titles of which would give the impression that the House is going in for liberalizing measures. But of course on a proper examination of the measures before the House we see that that is not the case.

The hon. member said that nobody had come forward to raise objections to the Bill we are discussing to-day, i.e. the interested parties who gave evidence before the Select Committee. But surely the evidence which was presented by those people was on the subject of Bill No. 5 of 1962. The Bill we are examining to-day is Bill No. 6 of 1963, and it is quite different from the Bill which was before the Select Committee and upon which these witnesses gave evidence. May I ask the hon. member at which stage could interested parties have given further evidence to the Select Committee which surely has been dissolved in the interim?

They were all asked to submit their evidence.

As far as I know, there was no Select Committee to which such interested parties could be asked to submit evidence, so I cannot see that that argument can hold any water whatever.

The hon. member also said that the accusation that there was any political censorship attached to this Bill is completely untrue for the reason that 99 per cent of the criticism of this Government, he says, comes from the English language newspapers which belong to the National Press Union, and they are specifically excluded from the operation of this Bill. Well, that is true; they are excluded, but I cannot get the same degree of comfort from that that the hon. member does, and for two very simple reasons. The first is that those newspapers are already under threat of banning under the Sabotage Act. The hon. member knows that there is a section in the Sabotage Act, the General Laws Amendment Act, which enables the Minister to ban any newspaper which he feels goes too far in criticizing this Government—not this Minister but the Minister of Justice, but it is nevertheless Cabinet responsibility, and therefore he knows that that threat is there already. The other reason why I take very little comfort from the fact that the N.P.U. newspapers are excluded from this Bill is the fact that hanging over their heads constantly is any amendment which could be introduced in this Bill, they have accepted a voluntary code because of these inherent threats, because of the Sabotage Act of last year, and because of the inherent threat contained in the Bill which they knew would be introduced in this House. This present Bill. There is a motion on the Order Paper already bringing this threat even closer to the newspapers of the N.P.U. So I take cold comfort from it. Indeed, I was extremely distressed that the N.P.U. should have accepted a voluntary code, because by so doing they conceded the basic principle that some sort of censorship of newspapers was necessary.

You need not worry. It is pretty useless.

They accepted that principle and undermined freedom of expression in this country by accepting that voluntary code. My only thought was that South Africa badly needs the men we had in this country 130 years ago, the Pringles and the Fairbairns, the men who established a great principle, freedom of the Press, in the old Cape Colony, and those men are sadly lacking in South Africa to-day.

And the Press Council in Britain?

Britain’s position is completely different. Britain is not under threat of having a totalitarian Government and therefore the whole situation is different.

Nonsense!

The other half-truth the hon. member mentioned was this question of the evidence presented by the Jewish Board of Deputies to the Select Committee. Sir, he read out correctly from this memorandum which I have before me the fact that the Jewish Board of Deputies objected to the racial incitement which was taking place in the country through the publications of people such as Schoeman and other neo-Nazis, and they ask therefore that some restrictions should be placed on such people. But they were very careful to point out also that despite the fact that they wanted it, they were very worried at the wide definitions in this Bill, and this is the portion which the hon. member failed to read out. The memorandum first of all mentions the definition of what could be an undesirable publication and then goes on to say—

[Interjection.] I will come to what I think in a moment, but what I am doing now is to dispel the incorrect impression created by the hon. member for Vereeniging about the memo presented to the Select Committee. My views, in fact, do not coincide with those of the Jewish Board of Deputies. I have my own views on the subject, which I will give. In regard to my own views, I want to say right away that I find this Bill abhorrent because it is just another step in the direction along which this Government has been taking the entire country since it came into power 14 years ago. It is another step in the direction of restrictions of individual freedoms, in this case the freedom of expression, one of the most cherished freedoms in the democratic world. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, I find it abhorrent. I am tired of having this Government throwing out largesse to an individual in the form of permits, permits to do this or that. No paperbacks will be allowed into the country except under permit. What right has any democratic government to make these prohibitions and then to dish out permits as if they are largesse? I find that abhorrent and I think this is an objectionable Bill. I agree with hon. members on this side who have stated that the basis of this Bill is not the suppression of smut; it is the suppression of criticism of this Government. That is what lies at the back of this Bill.

That is untrue.

If the hon. member says it is untrue, he must examine the definitions in this Bill, which go very much further than any definitions contained in any other Act in any other country that I have examined. I have looked at the Cronje Report and I have read several authoritative books on the subject, but I have yet to find a single Act in another country which in any way has the same kind of definitions which we have in this Bill.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) in his speech yesterday told the House that we were stupid to imagine that the entry of classical literature into this country would in any way be prohibited, and he used as proof of this statement that already in this country for many years, despite customs officials who act as a censorship board, most of the classics have been coming into the country, particularly the Shakespearian classics. Therefore, he said, why should anyone imagine that the powers the Government is now taking will be used to suppress any sort of classical literature or any form of criticism of the Government? Sir, I use his own example. An examination of the list of books that have been banned by this Government, by this very Customs Board, will disclose that it is not only smut or undesirable literature that has been banned, but there are hundreds of titles on that list of books which are not only considered as modern classics, but hundreds of titles of books that are simply political or sociological or books discussing African affairs. So why should we imagine that the new board which will be a creature of the Minister and which will consist entirely of members nominated by the Minister, will be any different from the officials who have been stopping imported literature from entering this country? We know full well that in the list of banned books which that board will publish there will be hundreds of books which will be completely inoffensive as far as morals are concerned and as far as obscenity is concerned, and whose sole sin will be that they dared indulge in criticism of this Government. I am quite sure that in a year’s time, when we examine the list which this board will publish—because no objections from this side of the House will make the slightest difference to the passage of this Bill—there will be hundreds of titles of books which have nothing to do with obscenity or even with racial incitement, which the hon. member for Vereeniging was so excited about, and nothing to do with offending the religious sentiments of anyone in the country, but books that criticize the political actions of the Government.

What right have you to say that?

I say that because the list of banned books, banned in terms of the Customs Act, contains such books, books on African affairs and political criticism of the Government and books dealing with trade unionism. I say exactly the same will obtain as obtains now. [Interjections.]

Other hon. members have mentioned that we have other laws on our statute book which do have a strong flavour of political censorship. There are the various Acts like the Suppression of Communism Act and the Riotous Assemblies Act. But the point is that this Bill will bring political comment within the control of a board which is not subject to the restraint of law and precedent, and it is a board which is not bound to hear evidence, nor is it bound to get outside expert opinion, or even to conduct its proceedings in an open forum, and that is what makes it a very dangerous and formidable form of censorship that we can expect. It is quite true, as the hon. member for Vereeniging has pointed out, that the right of appeal has now been included in this Bill. More largesse. We must all be grateful because the Government has decided to allow the right of appeal. Well, I will follow the example of hon. members opposite and thank the Minister, but I must say that it is the sort of thing which any normal democratic country would simply include as a matter of course in any legislation. But coming from this Government it is largesse. [Interjections.] I challenge the hon. member for Fort Beaufort to show me one country … [Interjections.] I want to point out that even this right of appeal is strictly limited, because the definition of “offensive or undesirable” is so wide and is couched in such vague phrases that even if the power to make the final decision is in fact in the hands of the courts, the problem of giving such definitions complete meaning, or of limiting their ambit, will in fact be very difficult indeed, and the role of the court as an arbitrator is in fact very restricted. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister and to the hon. member for Vereeniging, who asked for suggestions to improve the Bill, that certain things may be done. I want to make certain suggestions. The only way to bring this Bill into line with the existing legislation on obscene literature in other civilized countries would be to curtail strictly the definition of the word “undesirable”, i.e. severe curtailment of Clause 5. As it stands, the definition will reduce reading in this country to the level of the nursery, and it will severely inhibit writers in this country. I want to quote a statement which was made by Virginia Woolf before the Obscenity Act of 1959 was introduced in Britain, which of course considerably liberalized the existing law in England. At that stage the decision was left to what she called “the police magistrate” to decide whether or not literature should be censored. She said—

That is what she said in regard to the old law in England and the present law we are considering here goes a great deal further than that old law. What will be the position of the writers in this country, knowing that these heavy penalties hang over their heads, and what will be the position of printers and publishers knowing that heavy penalties hang over their heads? So the definition has to be severely changed. Then I suggest that the next change which should be introduced should be to leave all tests of undesirability to the courts and not to the board. The hon. member for Vereeniging gave us the impression that that is the case. That is not how I read the Bill. Clause 20 does not give me that impression, but perhaps the hon. the Minister in his reply will clarify it. As I read it, the actual test of undesirability is only ultimately left to the courts if there is an appeal against the decision of the board. But the first test of undesirability, the actual banning of a book, the publication of its title on the banned list, is in the hands of the board. I hope the Minister will clear that up. All that the board should be empowered to do, if there is to be a board at all—and I do not want it to be assumed that I am in favour of the board—should be to recommend that a prosecution be instituted by the Attorney-General, but it should not have the power of publishing findings on undesirability.

I have made it clear that I do not think that there should be a board and I will tell the hon. Minister why. Other countries are presumably just as concerned as South Africa is with preserving the high moral and ethical standards of citizens and protecting the young against undesirable literature and seeing that horror comics and smut are not published. I have tried very hard to find other countries in which boards operate and I could find only two examples in the whole of the English-speaking world. I may have missed some and if other members here know of others, they can tell me. I have studied an authoritative book on the subject, one in fact which was quoted by the Cronje Commission and that is “Obscenity and the Law” by Norman St. John-Stevas, a book which is supposed to be one of the authoritative books on this subject. According to that authority there is only one country in the English-speaking world—and there is also Queensland in Australia—which has any sort of board at all. Ireland is the big exception. Every other country retains the condition that issues of liberty or freedom of expression should be decided in the courts of the land. I am not thinking about individual state laws —I will come to that in a minute—because the Cronje Report is very misleading in this regard. [Interjection.] The hon. member is quite wrong; there are no boards in these countries; they have laws but no boards. The position in Ireland is most interesting because it is fairly similar to the position in this country. This is what the author says about Ireland. He says—

The only distinction I can see between Ireland and this country is that it will be the opinion of nine men instead of five.

No, they can go to court.

The original censoring will be done by nine men. Every other country in the English-speaking world anyway has retained the tradition that all issues of liberty of freedom of expression must be decided in the ordinary courts of the land. The right to appeal is a different issue altogether. What I am talking about is the initial decision as to what is good or is not good for a nation to read, and this should not be left in the hands of a board.

The Cronje Commission has several objections to leaving things in the hands of the courts and they mention such things as lack of expert knowledge on the part of the courts, lack of uniformity, undue publicity, etc., if the courts make the decisions about undesirability. Sir, everyday our courts are called upon to make decisions on matters on which they may not be experts. The board anyway has only got three experts who have to be nominated to it, but the main test of undesirability is a matter of taste and good judgment. You do not need experts for that, and the courts are accustomed to having to give decisions every day on matters on which they may not be experts, and I think they are the most suitable people to do this. As for lack of uniformity, the reasons for the decisions that are given, not the actual decisions, are surely the things that establish uniformity in everything. When the courts give their reasons for coming to certain decisions—not simply the basic decisions—that is what establishes uniformity. As far as publicity is concerned it would be a good thing to have publicity for the simple reason that publicity in cases of this kind would be the sort of thing that would make everybody aware of the major principles which are applied in administering the law and surely that is the important thing. This Bill, as far as I can see, makes no mention of intent; in other words, it is no defence to prove that there was no intention of spreading undesirable literature. In the United Kingdom both under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 and the Children and Young Persons Harmful Publications Act of 1955, it is a defence for a person prosecuted to prove that he has not examined the article in respect of which he is charged and had no reasonable cause to suspect that it was one to which the Act applied, so here too I think the Bill could be greatly improved if provision was made for lack of intention as a defence.

A great deal has been said in this House about the question of licence, about the abuse of freedom and so on, and I think everyone concedes at once that of course there are limitations to the so-called freedoms. We all know that. The hon. member for Fort Beaufort mentioned one example and I am sure there is not a member in this House who does not accept such limitations. In other words freedom of speech does not mean that I can libel or slander my neighbour. Every reasonable person accepts that. Every reasonable person would accept that freedom of movement does not mean, for instance, that I can trespass on my neighbour’s property. We all know that. So it is a silly argument to use. We all accept that there are certain natural restrictions on freedom, but of course, the real problem— and here I quote the words of Judge Frankfurter of the United States—

That, of course, is the problem. In the United States and in Britain the whole tendency in regard to the censorship of books has been in a liberalizing direction. There is the famous judgment of Judge Brown in the United States on this whole question of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” which interested one of the members on the Cross-Benches. The whole tendency, certainly in the judgment given by Judge Brown, is in a liberalizing direction. As far as the United States is concerned, the Higher Courts have indeed a very special regard for freedom of thought and expression and are prepared to set very narrow limits as to what can be suppressed on the ground of obscenity. Both in the United States Congress and in the State Legislature, the members there are addressing themselves seriously to the problem of devising obscenity laws which will leave serious literature alone and will at the same time be effective against commercial pornography. I say that it is misleading on the part of the Cronje Commission to have given the impression that the revision of the so-called norm to determine obscenity in different countries has been in the direction of tight control. It has been in quite the opposite direction, in the U.K. since the passing of the 1959 Act and in the U.S.A, since the judgment quite recently on the unexpurgated edition of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover ”. The whole direction has been towards liberalizing censorship of books. This country, of course, is going exactly in the opposite direction. There is no similarity as the hon. member for Fort Beaufort tried to tell us yesterday between this Bill and the legislation existing in other countries. There are many English-speaking countries that do have laws against obscenity but they do not have laws against the expression of political opinion, and however unpopular those opinions are, it is an accepted thing in democratic countries that it is the very essence of democracy to have the right to express unpopular ideas.

You have been expressing them all along and nobody has worried you.

No, but I very much fear that as these pieces of legislation are put on the Statute Book I will be worried and worried very much indeed. I wish to be able to go on expressing my opinion about this Government in as strong terms as I possibly can, short of using libellous language. It is also true, Sir, that some continental countries do have legal curbs on racial incitement. There are countries such as West Germany, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands which have laws which are aimed against racial hatred, and incidentally nearly all of them are countries which have experienced the immediate impact of Nazi or Fascist regimes, but none of these countries even goes as far as this Government does in this Bill in its definition of what is undesirable and what can be regarded as racial incitement. I say that we are engaged on a dangerous course here to-day. We are going even further along the road of inhibiting thought and freedom of expression under threats of punishment, and I want to conclude by quoting the words of Erskine in his defence of Stockdale in his famous address on freedom of speech. He said—

The hon. member for Houghton used the same approach as the previous speaker on the United Party side. I am convinced that they cannot attack the Bill directly because she tried, just as they did, to keep as far away from the Bill as possible and to use long quotations and to talk in such a way that she did not break the rules of the House. The hon. member tried to raise a hare and told us that this measure was “another restriction, another suppression of freedom of expression ”. She ought to know that that is not so but the fact remains that she wants no control; she does not want the true Rule of Law and therefore she tells us that she is opposed to the adoption of the Press Code. She even tried to tell us that she was not in agreement with the Jewish Board of Deputies. Well, that is her way and we accept it as such. She does not want order; she wants chaos in regard to these matters. I admit that it was pleasant for me to have the opportunity of serving on the Select Committee which dealt with these matters. It was pleasant for me to note the large amount of co-operation and unanimity which prevailed at the meetings of the Select Committee between members on both sides of the House. I was very pleased to see how unanimously the members accepted and voted for the principle that legislation should be introduced to combat these pornographic and undesirable things. We did differ here and there but my impression was that we differed more on minor matters than on the really important question of pornography. We got on so well that I remember the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) saying on one occasion that most of the clauses were very good. Even in the House yesterday afternoon he said that much of what was in this Bill was very good, but towards the end of our deliberations the United Party turned around and retained the right, which of course they have, to vote against the Bill. What happened then? I should have been able to guess because in the Cape Argus of 8 May 1962 I read: “United Party may fight the new Bill ”. It appeared to me that we had the same old story here; that once again, as usual, they received their instructions from outside and that is why we find that the position to-day is that hon. members of the United Party are in the unenviable position of having to oppose a measure with which they agree to a large extent; that they have to oppose a Bill which they helped to frame. I want to emphasize the fact that the hon. members were really helpful on the Select Committee. Not one of them said that they did not want the Bill. They really contributed towards and helped in the framing of this Bill. They now find themselves in the position where they have to break down what they helped to build up, and it is because they do not know how actually to attack the Bill. It is for that reason that we find the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) devoting much of his time not to this measure but to the old Bill of 1960. It is for that reason that we find the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) also coming to light with long quotations on themes and laws which have very little to do with this Bill That hon member admitted that he agreed that legislation was necessary. He still admits to-day that he believes that legislation is necessary. But now we find that the hon. member for Turffontein, in spite of the fact that he also voted in favour of it, is trying to make out that legislation is no longer necessary. Precisely because no argument can be raised against the Bill itself, we hear from the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) that their political rights are now being interfered with, their right to criticize. The hon. member for Houghton also said that their right to criticize was now being affected. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) sees in this “an encroachment on the civil liberty to criticize in public ”. Where on earth does that appear in the Bill? Just about the only argument that he could raise against this Bill—and the hon. member for Orange Grove also complained about it—was that the norm laid down in Clause 5 (2) was too wide and too vague. He contended that it would be impossible for the Attorney-General to take action. He forgets, however, that that norm is almost word for word the same as the norm in the old law and that it is the same norm which has always been used in the past. He forgets to tell us that there is a difference and that the difference lies in the fact that there is now an appeal to the courts, and that the courts have to decide and that we will now find that as a result of various judgments of the court a clear indication will gradually be given as to what is decent or indecent. In other words, a clear indication will be given and there will be a better idea of the norm. We are told now that control is suddenly not necessary; that there are more than enough existing laws to solve all our problems. I admit that there are a number of laws dealing with this subject under discussion, but the fact remains that it has become necessary for those various laws to be consolidated into one law. The old saying is still true, that everyone’s work is nobody’s work. I. believe that to a very large extent that is the reason why the hon. member for Turffontein alleged yesterday that very few undesirable publications have been discovered during the past 20 years. I believe that that was to a large extent due to the fact that everyone’s work was nobody’s work. There was a lack of efficiency because of it. In spite of all the laws we have, we find that pornography has continued to increase, according to the Cronje Report. We have heard many complaints in connection with the soft-cover publications. In the Cape Argus of May 1962 I read the following—

That is precisely the problem—that the 70 per cent which comes into the country gives us 90 per cent of our trouble. It is this material which gives us so much trouble and hon. members of the United Party want this material to be allowed freely into the country and expect us to do nothing—which is apparently what the hon. member for Houghton wants; that nothing should be done and that we should allow any smutty document to enter the country. The Sunday Times of 6 May 1962. writes as follows:

But that is not the true position. The importer has every right—which is protected by the Court—to go to Court for the protection of his rights. Therefore, the information in this newspaper in the name of the hon. member is not correct. This control over the soft-cover publication is an indication to me that the Government is aware of the fact that there are various stages of development in our country as far as the people are concerned. And that brings this point to the fore, that expensive books will circulate amongst the highly-developed people, amongst the richer people. This will mean that one will have to deal with people who are more adult, who are better able to form their own opinion concerning that literature. The fact remains that it is amongst the rich that one finds the more educated and more adult thinkers. The number of books of a particular nature which they have will also be smaller. But the same book, if sold more cheaply, will be read by a far larger number of people and unfortunately, by people who are perhaps less able to judge for themselves. I know that it has already been argued that a book can be banned in its softcover form, but that it can slip through if it is not sold in the soft-cover form. We have heard a great deal, Mr. Speaker, about the question of censorship. Hon. members opposite maintain that this board will be a censorship board while we are convinced that it will not be censorship but control which this board will exercise. In connection with censorship someone said:

—and then we have the"but"—

I think that this is where the crux of our problem in South Africa lies. People tell us from morning till night that the right thing is not to have control and to make laws but to educate the people; that we must so educate the people that the individual knows the difference between what is decent and indecent and between good and bad. However, I repeat that the crux of the problem lies in the fact that we must see this matter against the background of the composition of our population. We must realize that there are various national groups in South Africa with various stages of development. In this country we have persons who are very highly developed but we also have persons—and I am not speaking sneeringly; I am merely mentioning a fact—who are still very much underdeveloped. Large numbers of them can read but we must admit that many of them still have the mentality of children—measured against White standards at any rate—and we must consider this matter when we say so glibly that there must be no control, but merely education. This type of person of whom I am thinking is very easily influenced. I as a doctor ought to know that pornographic literature or pictures very often have the unnecessary affect of exciting people sexually, with the usual violent results. We must realize that this type of thing can create race hatred on the part of these people, race hatred which may be completely uncontrolled. We must realize that the young plant of our Christian faith which has been implanted in these people and which is still very tender, can very easily be completely uprooted. That is why I say that we must be very careful and must realize that we must do everything in our power to prevent the indoctrination of these people, no matter in what way, indoctrination which can lead them astray. We have to have education but education does not stop in the home or in the school. It is something which continues throughout one’s life and my contention is that the artist and the writer must be prepared to continue doing educative work after the child has left school. The writer must help educate and build up and he must not break down. We have a tremendous field lying fallow in South Africa. None of us who mean well with our country and with our fellowmen can afford to adopt a negative attitude or stand aloof from this problem. Each one of us has a duty to act positively and to help in the work of construction. We cannot expect these people to know the difference between what is good and what is bad. If one places good food and a packet of sweets before a child it is obvious that he is going to eat himself sick on the sweets. To expect untrained, uneducated, immature persons to decide what is good, is absolutely impossible. It is natural that they will be attracted by the sensational book while the good book which is usually a little dry in comparison will be thrust aside. In speaking about education, I maintain that education is not only intended for the reader. It may be that some of our writers also need educating. We can certainly not classify all our writers as being of the best. If there are bad writers we must educate them too. We know that most people are fundamentally good but perhaps because they want to become rich quickly some of them fall by the wayside and steal from and do material harm to their fellow-man. We do not think that it is wrong to sentence such a person, to punish such a person, even to send him to an institution for corrective training. How much more necessary is it then, if someone does another person not material but spiritual harm, that we should try to stop him, try to help him, try to educate him, reprimand him and if necessary, even punish him? A writer who wishes to get rich quickly or who wants to become popular quickly and who by his action harms another person spiritually, deserves to be punished. What I say of the writer holds good to a much larger extent for the publisher. We do not always realize how a publisher who wants to become rich quickly really does these things of which we are being accused. Because he finds that he makes most money out of the most sensational and most pornographic material, in reality he actually deprives the writer of his right and freedom to write as he feels and as he thinks. The publisher says that he does not want what is fine and good; he wants what is sensational. He compels the writer to write sensational material so that he, the publisher, can line his own pockets. Mr. Speaker, I accept the fact that we must have education but in this board which will be set up by this legislation I see a board which will act as an educator. The board will continue that education after a person has left school. The board will lay down the standard; the board will give guidance, guidance to the reader as well as to the writer. The board will not act autocratically and will not consist of a number of old women. The board will represent public opinion. Public opinion will eventually be the determining factor. I am quite convinced that if the board acts too strictly, public opinion will immediately make itself felt. If the board is too lax it can rest assured that the public will not remain silent. Besides this and having regard to the circumstances of the country and public opinion, the Courts will decide—and this is very important—whether things fall within the realms of decency or not.

A great deal has been said to-day about freedom and that the freedom of the individual should not be interfered with. It appears strange to me, Mr. Speaker, that so much emphasis is placed upon the freedom of those who really have no respect for what is fine, good and beautiful. Why should they be free to do evil? Why should the freedom which is given to them not be given to the same extent to those who wish to do good? There is freedom to help and to protect the weak. This Bill is not intended to remove any rights. This Bill is not intended to curtail liberties. In this Bill I see rather a controlling measure of constructive and educational value. I believe that it will eventually bring freedom to the spiritually weak. I believe that eventually it will bring with it that true freedom which we want to see in our country. I want to conclude by saying that if I know that I have made a contribution which will assist in placing this legislation on the Statute Book, it will give me great pleasure even though my contribution be merely to vote for it.

One of the things which most clearly distinguishes the free world from the unfree and the totalitarian is the freedom of speech and publication; in other words, the right by means of the spoken or written word to criticize the existing state of affairs and to attack it, and to change and reform the social order. This freedom is basic to democracy which, as we know, is the basis of our Western civilization. N. P. van Wyk Louw put it this way—

It is the free circulation of all ideas, including those which might be unpopular. It is therefore obvious that when a Government introduces legislation of a matter which affects this fundamental freedom of the people, one then has the right to ask: How satisfied can one be with a Government which introduces and has to implement such legislation? What is the nature and the scope of the limitations imposed by the Act? And how suitable is the machinery which the Government wants to create to assist it to implement the underlying object of the Act? I think that the hon. the Minister expects the Opposition to be honest and frank in its criticism, and I will try to be fair, but as frank as possible with the Minister.

It has already appeared from the report of the Select Committee on the subject of undesirable publications that the Opposition is not opposed to suitable steps to cope with the dissemination of pornography and filth. In fact, at the moment there exists a whole series of measures restricting extravagances of this nature, and I cannot remember any occasion where the Opposition opposed these measures as such, although there is of course a difference between legislation and the way in which that legislation is implemented. It is perhaps true, as hon. members opposite argued, that measures in some form or other also exist in most of the important countries of the world to deal with these extravagances if necessary. I take it that in the old cultural countries from which we stem there are also measures of one kind or another to restrict these extravagances. There is, however, a very great difference between our position and that in our countries of origin. The difference is this: In our old countries of origin they have developed, in the fullness of their culture, a sort of realism and tolerance in regard to man and his inherent weaknesses and the tensions which are the cause of his unnatural life. The result is that in these countries they are just as concerned as we are about their codes of good behaviour, but that in addition they have over the years developed the wisdom to know when and where to close their eyes somewhat and, within limits, to exercise a little tolerant patience and to allow for certain deviations. Unfortunately we did not bring with us to this country that sense or realism from the old countries from which we stem. On the contrary, we suffer from an appreciable measure of Chauvinism. And the opposition of the Opposition to this Bill and the machinery which it creates to control the circulation of ideas is really based on a deep feeling of lack of confidence in the general approach of the Government which has to implement this legislation. I am sorry to say it, but I think that the Government has itself to blame for that; that it is the Government’s own fault that in this respect people are sceptical of it. Experience has taught us that the Government has a very wide conception of what is “obnoxious”, and has developed a great measure of intolerance of individualism in the arts, just as it is openly inimical towards individualism in the personal relationships between people. I do not think we ever had a Government which so easily allows itself to be upset by the pressure of prudish people who see in everything that is new, a danger to the people and its morals, like the present Government. I think the hon. the Minister will understand what I mean. I just want to remind him of one incident, the case of the Kottler statue in Pretoria. A letter appeared in the Transvaler, followed by one or two more. If we had a Government which was strong in any way it would immediately have pointed out the puerility of their attitude to the objectors, and the whole thing would have died down within a few days. But the Government is so sensitive to the sentiments of this type of person who is always ready to take the mote out of another man’s eye that it made itself guilty of the foolish vandalism which now forms part of the whole long history of bans issued in South Africa. I mention this one incident as an example of the type of action which has given the Government a reputation which is far from flattering and which makes the public at large, Afrikaans-as well as English-speaking, genuinely afraid of the practical results of legislation of so comprehensive a nature as in the Bill we now have before us.

The hon. the Minister will, I am sure, argue that matters will be in the hands of the Board of Control over Publications, a Board which will act independently of him. Theoretically that is so, but in practice it will not work out that way. The Minister will appoint the members of the Board, and he alone. They will owe their posts, their tenure of office and their reappointment to the favour of the Minister and the Minister alone. Quite apart from that, it is obvious that the majority of the members of this new board, if not all of them, will be people who will be well disposed towards the politics or the general outlook and spiritual attitude of the Government. From the very nature of the matter it cannot be otherwise. The attitude revealed by a Government necessarily reflects the spirit of the officials and the public bodies it appoints and which are under its control. That which gives it pleasure, that which arouses its anger, that which is the desire of the Government, becomes the yardstick of these bodies appointed by the Government. Therefore I have no doubt that the Board of Control over Publications constituted by the Minister will also be a reflection of the wishes and the spirit of the Government. And for that reason the Opposition will now already have no confidence in the objectivity of that body and in this legislation which is before us, unless the Minister can find a way to constitute this Board, if it then has to be appointed, in such a way that it stands above all political suspicion and consists of eminent South Africans who are above all the petty prejudices of the ordinary man, and who have the reputation of having a broad human outlook.

What was the position of the previous boards under the old provisions? Did the same danger not exist under the United Party régime also?

Various Governments appoint various types of boards! In the present circumstances it would be best if this control board could rather be composed of people nominated by high-standing public bodies which have no axe to grind and who are independent of the political wishes of the Government of this country. Unless the Minister adopts such a method, I do not think he will be able to create confidence in this board. There is one alternative I wish to suggest to the Minister, and that is that the proposed board of control should be placed under the supervision of Parliament just like other control boards, so that they will have to account for their actions to a special Committee of this House every year, I should like to see this suggestion receiving serious consideration. I can see no sound reason why a board like this cannot account for its actions to a special Committee of this House, so that the Committee can question it, as happens in the case of other control boards. If other control boards in the country can be subjected to the supervision of this House, why not this one? The only alternative which will give a measure of satisfaction if the Minister persists in wanting to appoint the board himself is if he takes steps to place the activities of this board under the supervision of this House.

The provision in Clause 14 of the Bill which gives people the right to appeal to the courts against a decision of the board of control is of course a welcome one. But court cases of this nature are very expensive, and it takes a long time before a decision is arrived at. I just cannot see how in a case like this, where the banning of an entertainment show or of a single book is concerned, it will be worth while for the publisher or for the promoter of the show who feels aggrieved, and whose profits from the very nature of the matter are only slight, to go to the Supreme Court. I wonder whether that is not perhaps the reason why the film people did not insist on the right of appeal to the courts. I think it is essential to have it in the Bill, but I doubt whether it will have much practical value, because here one is dealing with a single book or with an entertainment which surely cannot wait six months for a decision.

He can go to the magistrate’s court.

It may still be a protracted case. Necessary as it is that the right of appeal to the courts should be granted, it will not amount to very much in practice. The best practical brake against extravagant action by the Control Board will be if that board can be held responsible by a Standing Committee of this House. And unless the Minister is prepared to adopt such a way out, he cannot expect the broad public to have any confidence in his board of control. We already have experience of the existing Board of Censors, which is also appointed by the Minister, and that board inspires everything but confidence. The Board is responsible to nobody but the Minister. There is no means by which even Parliament can judge properly as to whether this Board does its work well or whether it exceeds its duties. What have we found in regard to this Board? I think we will have precisely the same experience in regard to this new board of control which the Minister is going to appoint. Since July, 1956, when a consolidated list of “obnoxious literature” was published in the Government Gazette, altogether 87 supplementary lists of banned books have been published. According to that, up to to-day altogether 7, 497 titles have, been banned. The numbers are really much higher, because in many cases all future editions of a particular publication were banned. I. have carefully considered this list over the years and I have discovered two clear tendencies. The first is a totally unnecessary. prudishness in respect of works which are read in all civilized countries of the Western world, even works which in a sense become classics in their own particular category. I am not referring to the so-called “penny horribles There is cheap literature, the titles of which are already so suspicious that it does not Require any particular exercise of judgment on the part of the Censor Board to ban it. In-the list of banned books I see titles like, e.g„ Careless Caresses”, “The Hard-boiled Virgin”, “The Sexual Life of Robinson Crusoe”, “Sabrina and the Senator”, “The Girl with the Golden Yo-Yo”, and “All the Girls were Willing I mention only a few of those which, by their very titles commend themselves for banning. Nobody objects to that. But what one objects to is that more serious works are banned, that there are bannings which are positively ridiculous. We remember the case of classics such as “The Cossacks” of Leo Tolstoy and “The Insulted and Humiliated” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “Mumu” by Turgenev—all well known classics which were banned. The joke is that within a month the ban was lifted again. The Minister who was in control then is the present Minister of Finance. My impression is that he blindly signed the list submitted to him by the Censor Board, until his attention was drawn to the matter and the ban was lifted. Precisely the same thing happened in regard to “Bonjour Tristesse” by Francoise Sagan. It was banned in September, 1958, but exactly two months later the ban was withdrawn again. Well, a book cannot be indecent and obnoxious one day and just a month later it is no longer indecent or obnoxious. I can give many examples of this. We had the case of the Pelican issue of “Homosexuality” by Dr. D. J. West, which was also banned. In that regard the S.A. Medical Journal wrote the following in a leading article, as reported in the Burger of 16th December, 1961—

We have had the banning of the political biography of Stalin by Isaac Deutscher; This work was not a communistic piece-of propaganda but a standard work which as used in the political science section of our universities as a scientific handbook. It was banned in August, 1961, and seven months later the ban was withdrawn. This is the sort of thing of which I can give many more examples, this sort of prudishness, childishness and the injudicious actions of the Government’s Censor Board which led to the Cape Times referring to “a committee of burgesses who presumably will reject anything unsuitable for a 14-year-old schoolgirl ”. If one -has regard to the names of authors of standing whose books have all been banned, one cannot but have a lack of confidence in the type of board of control appointed by-the Government. One gains the impression that the reading privileges of the country must fit in with what is good enough to be prescribed as a school book. When it comes to political works one justifiably gains the impression that the Censor Board is of the opinion that if a Native may not read a book in this apartheid country of ours, then the Prime Minister and the White people may not read it either. In fact, apart from pornography and communist propaganda, it seems to me that the whole standpoint of the Censor Board to-day rests on this, that if the Native may not read a book, according to his judgment, everybody must be deprived of it. The Censor Board itself is responsible for the fact that the public has gained that impression.

That brings me to the second dangerous tendency I discern on the part of the Censor Board. I again want to point out that this is a board which enjoys the confidence of the Minister and which reflects the mentality of the Government—a situation which will be repeated in the new Board of Control. In recent years the Government has developed a peculiar sensitivity towards criticism, particularly in regard to its policy of apartheid. In its mind the term “undesirable” has now been given the meaning of a standpoint which is unpopular in terms of its policy, and the more sensitive the Government has become of criticism, the more sensitive the Censor Board has become. The result is that a second dangerous tendency has become discernible on the part of the Censor Board, namely that just recently increasingly more well known works have been banned for one reason only, namely because the Government does not like the person or the politics of the author, or because it is critical of the racial politics of the Government. There was the well-known case of Nadine Gordimer’s “World of Strangers”, the coft-cover issue of which was banned. When protest was voiced against that, the Government Press frankly admitted that this book was “a danger to the racial policy of the Government ”. The Burger of 5th March, 1962, reported the following—

I wonder whether there can be a more dangerous standpoint against the Government’s racial policy than that contained in the New Testament! That is the position we have reached, and the position is evidently that as soon as criticism of the Government’s racial policy becomes too convincing, as soon as the author is a man of such standing that his criticism becomes too, dangerous for the Government, the book must be banned, One of the most disconcerting aspects of this banning is the fact that books are, now banned on a large scale which have been standing on the shelves of book collectors for years already. I want to give, the Minister a few practical examples of books I had on my own shelves for years and which have recently suddenly been banned. There is “Independence for Africa ’’ by Gwendolyn M. Carter. It is a factual book dealing with developments in Africa written by a clever authoress with a particularly perceptive mind.

The American authoress?

Yes. I have read this book. It stood on my bookshelf before it was banned. After having re-read it objectively, I can find no other reason for the book being banned than that in the section dealing with South Africa it was critical of the Government’s racial policy and the incidents at Sharpeville. Surely we cannot continually shut our eyes to the way in which other people see us? There is another book, Dr. Nkrumah’s autobiography, entitled “Ghana”. This book was published in 1957 and has been circulating in South Africa ever since that time, but 41 years later, in December 1961, it was suddenly banned. That is also a book I read. One asks oneself, whether one likes Dr. Nkrumah or not, how on earth we as an African state can understand developments in Africa if we may not even read the history of the development of Ghana and of Dr. Nkrumah.

May I ask the hon. member whether his attention has been directed to Section 5 (5), in terms of which he may obtain written permission from the board to keep those banned books on his bookshelf?

I was just going to put a question to the Minister in that regard. One of the most remarkable cases was that of Hans de Boer, the author of a German book “Unterwegs Notiert ”. I know him personally. He was in South West Africa for some time as the business partner of a man who at that time was a Senator of the National Party. Thereafter he became a travelling secretary of the Y.M.C.A., and then he wrote this book about his world travels and expressed a little criticism in regard to the practice of racial discrimination in South Africa. The point, however, is that this book was published in 1956, in German. Consequently it could only have had a very small circulation here and I doubt whether one would still have been able to find it in any bookshop in South Africa. It had evidently disappeared from the scene long ago, but suddenly in 1962 this book was banned. In 1957 I bought it and five years later it was suddenly banned. So I can also mention “African Profiles” by Ronald Segal, a documentary work; “Passive Resistance in South Africa” by Professor Leo Kuper, also a documentary work dealing with a very interesting portion of our political history. I think any student of politics would be interested in this history and the driving force behind the passive resistance movement in South Africa. This is the type of book, which has been banned on a large scale. And in respect of those which I have read, I could find no reason for the banning other than that the Government does not like the author or the criticism of its policy. For no other reason! We have reached the stage where everything which hurts the Government party politically is being banned to an increasing extent, and I am afraid that at the moment a small imposition is going back on all the steps of the past to sniff out books which have been in the possession of people for years already. I should like to ask the Minister this. What does he expect a collector of political works to do with books which he bought legally years ago but which have now suddenly become obnoxious? I shall be glad if the Minister will give us a frank reply to that question. If I throw them away, other people who do not know that they have been banned may perhaps pick them up and unknowingly make themselves guilty of a contravention. As it is, I come across very few private libraries in the country which do not unknowingly contain banned books. Booklovers simply cannot keep pace with all the books that are banned, usually not books which are pornographic, but political works which are of interest to any student of politics, but which have been banned because they contain criticism of the Government. I want to ask the Minister frankly whether he wants us to go back to the Middle Ages and every once in a while, on the instructions of the authority, as it were, organize a book-burning? Is that what we are to do? Are we to burn our books? I expect an honest reply from the Minister, because as a book-lover I am concerned to see to what an increasing extent in recent years political works which have been standing on people’s bookshelves for years are being banned.

To sum up, our objection to this Bill amounts to this. In the first place there is no reason for believing that the new Control Board will differ much in its composition from the existing Censor Board. If the Minister holds out the prospect of a change, let him tell us. For example, on the present Censor Board a political author has been appointed who in my opinion is a racist who in his time was openly an anti-Semite and one who has connections with all kinds of neo-fascist organizations in the Southern States of America. The hon. the Minister will know who I am referring to. I feel convinced that this type of element on the Censor Board has much to do with the flood of bans of political books we have had recently, and it is disconcerting to think that such people should be allowed to decide arbitrarily what I may read or may not read. I do not blame the Minister for everything. No Minister can read all the books himself which are contained on the list submitted to him for banning by the Censor Board. In regard to certain books, I do in fact blame him, seeing that he could easily have used his own judgment, but nobody expects him to do the impossible. But it is in fact this type of control the Government has instituted which is responsible for this state of affairs, and now he is again going to appoint a board which will still be of the same nature and in addition will also have power over domestic publications. In the first place, therefore, we are opposed to the Bill because, on the basis of our experience of the existing Central Board, we already have no confidence in the board which the Minister will appoint as a politician. We are against the Bill because we have no reason for believing that the new Control Board will not reflect the Government’s political feuds to the same extent as the existing Central Board. Furthermore, as matters stand now, we are opposed to the idea of domestic censorship. The Minister says it is not censorship but control, but surely it is control with the power to censor. It is therefore the same thing. In the circumstances in which we are being governed to-day, we cannot lightly accept the principle of domestic censorship. Nor do I believe that matters have already developed to such an extent that we should apply domestic censorship. When once the machinery has been created and the road has been opened for domestic control and censorship, we will have a flood of complaints from those small groups of unsavoury busybodies one finds in every society in the world. In every community one finds people who claim every freedom to announce their own ideas but who do not want other people to have the same freedom.

Are you referring to yourself?

I may have my faults, but one fault I do not have is that I do not become impatient when another man wants to put his standpoint. Never. I would be the last to deny somebody else the right to say something undesirable and to criticize matters. Why should we be so sensitive when somebody says something which is alleged to be obnoxious? What is the actual meaning of obnoxiousness? The great satirists of the world, great authors like Voltaire and Oscar Wilde, are often instruments who assist people and nations to maintain their balance. A man is either ridiculous or he is not. In politics the one side is continually busy trying to ridicule the other. Is there now to be legislation to prevent it? There is sufficient machinery to combat the importation and distribution of pornography and communist propaganda, and nobody has any objection to that, and internal censorship is not necessary for that. We further object to the fact that, where a board of control is now going to be appointed, provision is not even made in the Bill for parliamentary supervision over the activities of this board.

Furthermore, this Bill, as it reads, attaches a meaning to the concept “obnoxious”, which is in fact obnoxious to anyone who believes in democracy. In my opinion, this Bill opens the door wide for interference in the matters of political parties, which particularly in election times can lead to abuse. But it would perhaps be better for us to deal with these aspects in the Committee Stage, so that I will not go into it further now.

Finally, what the Censor Board and the hon. the Minister do not realize either is that the type of censorship be applies, and which will now increase in scope by the application of domestic censorship, often has just the opposite effect from what they desire, and that will time and again harm South Africa’s good name in the outside world. [Time limit.]

One regrets that on the part of the Opposition one finds a frame of mind of chronic fear and suspicion in regard to any legislation introduced by this Government. This chronic fear and suspicion with which the Opposition is obsessed has the effect that they cannot or will not judge of matters soberly in this House. Therefore one is sorry that in regard to this legislation the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) also tried beforehand to sow suspicion against this board and the integrity of the board. This Bill particularly aims at freeing the board from political influences, the political influence which the Minister has in respect of the board, and to place control of the board in the hands of the courts of the land. But in spite of that, hon. members opposite still accused the Government of wishing to make misuse of the board for political purposes. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout has also done so now. One can differ on the matter, but in view of the fact that an attempt is being made here to appoint a board of a high standard, as provided for in the Bill, and as in the second place an appeal to the courts is provided for, instead of to the Minister who is a political figure, that proves that this is an attempt to raise the level on which these things will be judged.

To compare this with the present Censor Board and its actions is quite wrong. It is true that this Censor Board made mistakes, as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has stated. I expect the Censor Board of the future will also make mistakes. But I want to add that if one compares the number of books those people had to handle with the number of books in regard to which mistakes were made, it is a very small percentage. It is human to err, but where we now under the new system place a prohibition on a large series of books I think that is an attempt to facilitate the work of the board and to enable it to handle its work better, and in addition to give it the opportunity to judge matters beforehand. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred to books standing on the shelves for six years, but that is just what one wants to prevent, and I hope that in future it will be avoided.

I want to go further. The hon. member who has just resumed his seat does not want to acknowledge the power the courts will have, and I think that is a very important new course which is being adopted in this Bill, namely that we are depriving the board of any political influence. It will in fact be a board appointed by the Minister, but in terms of this Bill it will be a board which can be appointed on a higher level than the existing one.

I also want to point out that particularly in the past 20 years we have been faced with the problem of soft cover books entering the country in large numbers, and that is the problem with which we have to cope to-day. Therefore in terms of this Bill, books of a higher standard, of a higher price, will be allowed to enter the country and there is no control over them. I want to point out that we are really just making an attempt to keep out the cheap literature.

I want to say immediately that I do not doubt the right of the Opposition to plead for the preservation of personal liberty in this country. They have the right to plead for personal liberties in this country in season and out of it. But I also want to assure hon. members opposite that we do not intend curtailing the personal freedom of people in this country either, except in so far as they constitute a threat to freedom itself. Mr. Speaker, freedom is never an unbridled, uncontrolled thing without limits. Uncontrolled freedom carries within it the germ of its own doom. We on both sides of the House are descendants of people who love freedom and fought for it. We ourselves fought for years for our freedom on various levels, personal freedom, political freedom, constitutional freedom and freedom of personal dignity. We would be untrue to the traditions and the national character of this country if we were to allow personal freedom to be curtailed more than it is in any country, namely to the extent of even freedom itself becoming threatened.

There is no country where there are no limitations. I challenge the Opposition to mention any country to me, from the greatest democracy to the greatest dictatorship, where certain limits are not set to freedom. Freedom without those limits must eventually lead to anarchy and chaos and to the doom of freedom itself. We cannot allow people to make use of the freedom in our country for the very purpose of undermining that freedom. Nor can we give people the right to use freedom to destroy democracy, and we cannot give people the right to undermine the social and spiritual foundations of the nation so that eventually we will no longer be able to maintain and to defend our freedom and we become so weak-kneed that we can no longer safeguard our own freedom. Therefore we want to be enabled to preserve and to defend our own freedom, and for that reason we want to protect our freedom by applying certain limitations. I repeat that I challenge the Opposition to mention a single country in the world where there are not certain limitations on freedom.

The Opposition agrees with us in regard to the principle of this Bill, but they have all kinds of reservations. In the Select Committee the Opposition voted for the principle of this Bill, but when we now come to the provisions of the Bill they say the Bill goes too far. The question therefore is really whether this Bill goes too far in the limits it applies. In connection with this matter I tried to ascertain what the position was in other countries, and in my search I came across a very interesting book which. I think, will carry weight with the Opposition because it is a study made under the protection of UNESCO in regard to the limits placed on freedom in the various countries of the world, and in this UNESCO report it is admitted that limits are placed on freedom in many countries and they even summarize the mistakes which the printing press may make. They point out that no legal system in any country has given a comprehensive definition of all the mistakes of the Press, and then they themselves try to summarize the mistakes the Press can make. This book also deals with radio and films, and then they say—

Here is a comprehensive list which goes very much further than what is provided for in this Bill and UNESCO gives that as examples of the misconduct and mistakes of the Press. Then various categories of this misconduct are dealt with further and I hope hon. members will bear with me if I refer to various aspects of this misconduct. Under the heading “Injury to Good Morals” the report says this—

And then they mention the countries: “Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, the United States (Federal laws, state laws)”, and then they say—

That is what they say in connection with “Injury to Good Morals ”. But I want to come to what they say about “Injury to Family Life”, and there they say the following—

Then they again mention the countries—

That goes much further than this Bill does. If people say that we now have a police state here, my reply is that I think we have much more personal liberty than there is in certain of the countries mentioned. Then we get to the next heading, “Defence of Anarchy, Crime and Felony ”. The question is asked—

We have, for example, blasphemy and offences against religion. There they say—

One is surprised at what is done in other countries and not done here, and that nobody there says a word against what is done there. Then we have the following—

I mention these facts taken from the report of UNESCO in order to prove that it is not only in our country that we are concerned about the undermining of our spiritual and moral life by pornographic literature, but that this is the case in almost all countries of the world.

I further want to point, in connection with the accusation hon. members opposite make in regard to the reason why we place this prohibition on cheap literature entering the country if it costs less than 50 cents, to what they call “special rules governing foreign countries”, They say—

So it goes on, and they point to what happens in America—

I have mentioned this because the hon. member for Houghton said that we go much further. But here we find that many countries go much further than we envisage in this Bill. I say that one comes to the conclusion that other countries are just as concerned as we are about the role the printing Press plays in the various forms of publication, and whilst I am on this subject I want to express my thanks in the first place to the Government for having seen fit to exclude the newspapers belonging to the Press Union and giving them the opportunity of putting their own house in order. The onus now rest on those newspapers to do so, hut whilst I am on the point I also want to mention that even in England they have now already had the second Press Commission. [Interjection.] The last one was the so-called Shawcross Commission, and it is interesting to see that one of the recommendations of that commission was the following—

Hon. members opposite accuse this Government of all kinds of things, but I have shown that even in the biggest democracies people are also concerned about what happens in regard to the Press. Therefore I say that whilst we have now given the Press the opportunity to bring its own house in order I am glad that they have been excluded from the provisions of this Bill.

Now I want to say something about soft cover books. The provisions of this Bill are only an attempt to create workable machinery, because if these thousands of books have once been allowed to enter the country one can apply no censorship. When once that stream of soft cover books reaches the shelves of the bookshops and the cafés, no control can be exercised Over it, and because we want to take action against 90 per cent of these books the best thing is to prohibit them. If hon. members can suggest any other workable method, I shall be glad. But whilst we will allow good books to enter the country freely, this is an attempt to keep out the thousands of cheap books which are dumped in this country by people who have no regard for the morals of our nation and do so merely for profit. Therefore I say that this is only an attempt to create workable machinery to control the inflow of those books.

Now I want to say something about the vagueness of the norm. In this report of UNESCO they also refer to the vagueness of the norm and point out that it is deliberately vague so that the courts can operate more efficiently. They say—

In other words, even this book which gives a summary of the practice in the various countries comes to the conclusion that it is better to leave the definition of the norm vague and to give the courts greater freedom to lay down what the norm should be. Therefore I say it is a pity that hon. members regard everything that this Government does with suspicion and fear. I believe it is our duty to protect our people against this new development in the world of literature, these soft cover books, the widespread dissemination of cheap reading matter. I think we would be doing our country a service if we could even to some extent succeed in coping with the evil presented by these books.

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that it is indeed a Gilbertian situation when I rise here to make a plea, as I intend to do, to the Minister of Education, Arts and Science for the freedom of the arts, for the freedom of self-expression of the artist, the writer, the poet, the sculptor, the film-maker, and for freedom of thought and expression for all. I think it is a Gilbertian situation, because it is he, and not I, who should be making that plea. After all, there sits the Minister of Education, Arts and Science—and if he has one function, leaving out the question of education or science, it is to maintain the position of the arts in the life of our community, and to advance the position of the arts; and he can only do so if he continues to advocate and in fact to fight like a tiger for the freedom of the arts and the artist. But, you see, Sir, the rather peculiar position that arises through the combination or portfolios. The Minister finds himself in the well-known position of Pooh-Bah in “The Mikado”, where he combines all those important functions in his one person. He is the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Lord Chief Justice and everything that matters. I must concede that the Minister is in a very peculiar position because it seems to me that at some stage he must have had a conference between the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Education, Arts and Science.

It happens very often.

The point I am trying to make—and the hon. the Minister has already conceded the point—is that he, as a member of this House and as an individual, has two completely different functions to exercise in those two capacities of Minister of the Interior and Minister of Education, Arts and Science, and although he is to-day piloting this Bill through the House as Minister of the Interior, I want to appeal to him as Minister of Education, Arts and Science; In doing so, I know the Minister has already been fair enough to concede that there is this conflict, and I can only hope that he will give some reasonable consideration to what has been said from this side of the House and to what I propose to say.

The Minister had a great deal to say about the Press Code which, he said in effect, showed how this particular Bill was in fact a measure designed to provide a certain stability in a certain field of our communal life, and had no implications whatever in regard to what he called censorship. He said that there was this Press Code “for the observance of the highest duty of newspapers to observe in the presentation of news, etc., and that there should be no deliberate distortion by suppression summarization”, etc. etc. and then he said that in 1962 the Cape Times accepted the Press Code. Now I am not here to hold a brief for the Cape Times or any other newspaper, but I put it to the Minister with deference that he need not be surprised that the Cape Times supported the Press Code, because it was a voluntary undertaking by the Cape Times and the other newspapers to observe a certain code of honour, if I may call it that, and not the imposition by the State of any law which would make the conduct of the affairs of any newspaper extremely difficult and susceptible to the penalties of the law. It is a very different situation and I think, with respect, that the Minister should not pursue that analogy too far, even if the Cape Times, which enjoyed his favour in 1962 by supporting the Press Code, fell foul of him yesterday by referring to the proposed Board of Control as a “collection of old women of both sexes ”. He should try to be a little more objective than that.

The other point that struck me particularly about the Minister’s introductory speech was the stress he placed on the opinion of Mr. Justice Marais. He referred to “Standpunte”, in which a certain article by Mr. Justice Marais appeared. I think he referred to it no fewer than four times, and it would seem to me that this Bill, if it becomes an Act, could well be known as the Marais Act, and that it is the result entirely of the thinking of Mr. Justice Marais. If I have gained that impression without justification, the Minister has himself to blame for it. But what Mr. Justice Marais said in “Standpunte” should also be compared with what he said on another occasion, and although several hon. members referred, as did the Minister, to the interviews given by certain people to Dagbreek, which were published in the last issue, and in fact the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) read part of it, they all seemed to shy away from one of the statements which Mr. Justice Marais made in the same interview. Incidentally, I do not know whether this will impress the Minister, because he dismissed all these people who were reported in Dagbreek as “daardie slim mense”, and by implication although Mr. Justice Marais of “Standpunte”, is a learned judge and an authority on the arts according to the Minister, the same Mr. Justice Marais of Dagbreek is only one of those “slim mense ”. That is what he said about all these people. This gentleman said, amongst other things: “Ons het net een tekort-koming in die wetsontwerp gesien.” In other words, there is one defect, and it is not the perfection the hon. the Minister held out as a result of the opinions of Mr. Justice Marais as expressed to him or as written in “Standpunte”, “dat daar geen verwysing na die artistiese aspek van die omstrede publikasie is nie ”. There is no reference to the artistic aspect of a publication which is in dispute or in debate. Surely that is a very important matter for the Minister of Education, Arts and Science. How can he, in that capacity, accept a piece of legislation, however well meant by his colleague the Minister of the Interior, which immediately, according to his best authority so far, Mr. Justice Marais, inhibits the artistic aspect of the creative arts of this country? I have not always had very satisfactory answers from the hon. the Minister. I realize I am only a back-bencher, but I hope that on this occasion the Minister will at least put me on the right road in regard to this peculiar conflict of opinion between the learned Judge as reported in one publication, and then as reported in another publication.

Another aspect of the matter which the Minister laid great stress on, was that this was not a censorship Bill. He emphasized that with all the strength at his command. I would like to draw to the Minister’s attention just what censorship means because, with respect, I doubt whether he has any real knowledge of the meaning of the word “censorship ”. It is a very serious matter to say that this is not censorship without knowing what censorship is. Here I have a book. It is not “Standpunte”, but it is an authoritative work called “The Freedom to Read”, which was produced in the United States by the National Book Committee under a grant from the Fund for the Republic, and which was compiled by a commission of three distinguished scholars, some of whom I think will be known to the hon. the Minister: Richard McKeon, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, Robert K. Merton, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, and Walter Gell-horn, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School. This is generally accepted as an authoritative book on the subject, and this is what is said about censorship—

I am merely trying to assist the hon. the Minister to realize what is meant by “censorship”, before he comes to the House and so emphatically asserts that he will have nothing to do with censorship, because in terms of his own Bill he intends to set up a controlling board which under any other name is in fact a censorship board, whether the Minister likes it or not. I will leave the matter there for the time being.

This Board, according to the Minister, will take the place of the existing board of Censors as far as the film industry is concerned, and I would very much like to deal with the film industry in the time at my disposal, but I propose to leave that aspect of the matter until later. The Minister then went on to say, after referring to Mr. Justice Marais and his point of view, that all those people who had been interviewed by Dagbreek were very “ignorant” people, but apparently he did not then know that Mr. Justice Marais was one of them. The fact of the matter is that those persons who were interviewed by this newspaper were obviously motivated by only one consideration, and that was the desire to maintain, particularly for the Afrikaans writers, author and poet, that freedom of expression which had allowed the Afrikaans language and art to develop to the stage that has been reached to-day. I wonder whether Afrikaans would have been the living language that it is to-day if this same form of control that the Minister now seeks to exercise through this Bill, had been applied in the earlier stages of the development of the language. It is a matter for historical research and one could easily prove what would have happened if that control had been applied in those formative years.

I want to deal with the statement the Minister made on the aspect of the regulation of the thinking and writing and the reading of the people of this country in regard to books particularly, when he said that there was nothing wrong with this control. He said a controlled man was a free man, and that an uncontrolled man was a barbarian. The Minister should know that the country where there is the maximum control of the individual is Soviet Russia. From the cradle to the grave he is a controlled man—yet, said the Minister in effect, every Russian is a civilized man, the most civilized man there can be, but we who still have a certain amount of liberty here are barbarians. Sir, we have seen the examples of the “freedom” of the “controlled man” of Soviet Russia and of Nazi Germany, and I do not think the Minister is on very good grounds in advancing the argument that the regulation of thought, of expression, and the control of the individual is in itself the hall-mark of civilization, as he said yesterday. If, in fact, the Minister can change his mind, as he has done this evening in regard to what he said the day before, I can only hope that he will continue to have that flexibility of mind in regard to one or two other matters in this Bill also. One of these is his statement that it would have been a simple matter for him to appoint a board of censors— because he is still trying to draw a distinction between censors and controllers—and they would then simply strike out or ban whatever they thought was undesirable. Well, it seems to me that here the Minister is doing no more than making a virtue of necessity. He does not seriously try to suggest to this House that it was in his mind to appoint a board of censors to examine every single book that entered the country, but that is the inference he asked us to draw. If he did so, he must surely be unaware of the fact that in the English language alone, and in two countries only, there is a total of 50,000 new titles published every year —30,000 in the United Kingdom and 20,000 in the U.S.A. Why does the Minister suggest that this is a virtue—his control board as compared with a board of censors which he said would have been simple to create—when, according to his own theses, in order to make sure that the morals of the people were not subverted or contaminated, they would have had to read in one year possibly 50,000 books to make absolutely sure that nothing came into the country which would subvert the morals of the people? It is at best a specious argument, and at the worst, it is a fatuous argument.

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

Evening Sitting

When business was suspended for dinner, I was drawing the hon. the Minister’s attention to the fact that he had made a virtue out of necessity by saying that he would not appoint a board of censorship. I pointed out that from every practical point of view, it was quite impossible to establish a board of censorship which could cope with the volume of literature published in the English language, for instance, in overseas countries.

The Minister himself, as I recall, pointed to the other and very real difficulty which the board—whether he calls it a board of control, a publications control board or board of censors—would have to face in determining reasonably, though not necessarily accurately, what was or was not objectionable. The Minister said, and I want to thank him for saying it—in dealing with what he called the yardstick or the norm—

He was fair enough to say that. In other words, it will differ from one person to another and it is a relative concept. That is an accurate summing up of the crux of the difficulty which any regulating or controlling body or board of censors will have to face. And, Sir, in the aftermath of time, it is very easy to prove how correct the statement of the hon. the Minister is and will continue to be, for the simple reason that, apart from the list of books already banned here and touched upon earlier to-day by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, there is a long historical list of works which had been banned for one reason or another—banned in the sense that their publication, dissemination or their reading was prohibited by authority.

I have here a very interesting book which I, with deference to the hon. the Minister, should like to offer to him to read. It is not a lengthy look and is called simply “Banned Books ”. It has been written by a person who is regarded as being some authority on the subject. As a matter of fact, this writer has made a careful historical survey of the banning of books, which some people seem to think is a modern device and a latter-day event. It is, of course, nothing of the sort.

Who is the writer?

The name of the writer is “Haight ”—not the other kind of “heid” about which we hear from time to time, i.e. “apartheid ”. I cannot, of course, read all the titles (with the brief descriptions of what happened to them), of all the banned books enumerated by this writer, but I want to quote some examples. In the case of Homer, for instance (c. 850 b.c.) Plato suggested in 387 b.c. that The Odyssey be expurgated for immature readers, whereas in a.d. 35, in Rome, Caligula tried to suppress this work because “it expressed Greek ideals of freedom which were regarded as dangerous in autocratic Rome”. Confucius was treated similarly. Works of Aristophanes were treated in the same way, as for example “Clouds” and “Lysistrata ”. In 423 b.c., in Greece and Athens, “Clouds” was regarded as a play in which Socrates was pilloried as a typical representative of impious and destructive speculations. This is what this writer states. Now, can you believe it, Mr. Speaker? It happened to Socrates—not Gorshel, but Socrates! The writer goes on to say—

Aristophanes, Mr. Speaker, and not the hon. member for Vereeniging!

Ovid was banned, and there is a long list of bannings of the Bible. Can you believe that, Mr. Speaker? For example—

What a credit, what an honour, for a book, in this case the Bible, to be banned! I can quote further. For example—-

What is your point?

I wish I could identify the hon. member who asked that question, Sir, only to be able to meet him privately and have a chat with him. However, I hope he will, in any case, see what my point is as I go along. The “Koran” was banned in the 15th century; works of Boccaccio were banned; so were works of Savonarola, Erasmus —not the gentleman who is now representing us in Rome, Sir, but one Desiderius Erasmus. He was banned all over the place—in England, in Switzerland, in France, in Scotland, etc. Take Machiavelli—his works were banned at times. Now I come to the oddest banning of all—I cite this particularly as a warning to the hon. the Minister and the hon. member sitting next to him (Dr. Jonker) because I know how interested he is in the establishment of this Publications Control Board! This is a very remarkable case—the one and only Michelangelo! Here we come to works of art, about the banning of which the hon. the Minister knows something! This is what the writer of this book reports about the work “The Last Judgement ”—

I have had the privilege of seeing it, as has, I think, the hon. the Minister—

This happened in 1933 in the United States and is typical of what can happen and what will certainly happen in South Africa—

In our case it will be the Publication Board—

The writer reports further on this matter—

Now, Mr. Speaker, why should we all be so keen—as some of the hon. members on the other side appear to be—to generalise about this subject by prating endlessly about the need—and their desire—to defend the morals of the people of this country, and to suggest by inference that we, on this side of the House, are just an immoral bunch of people who do not want to defend the morals of the people of the country? Why should they be so keen to do that when history is studded with countless examples of what happens when officialdom tries to protect the morals of the people? Let me tell you without hesitation that there was hardly a writer, hardly a famous painter or sculptor in the history of the world since before Christ, whose works were not at some time or other banned in countries which are to-day considered civilized. But we in this country, in this 20th century, go back to 354 b.c., and start banning!

Is that logical, Mr. Speaker? Where is the sense in it? I hope the hon. the Minister will tell us that. I do not want to read any further from this list which the writer gives. Michelangelo, I think, has proved my point.

Make your own speech for a change!

I am trying to make my own speech in difficult circumstances. The hon. member for Vereeniging, however, departed from his customary practice of making a speech in the only way in which he can do it, and read it this afternoon …

Order, Order!

Very well, Mr. Speaker. In regard to the analysis, which I quoted from earlier, by the commissioners appointed by the National Book Council and published in this book “The Freedom to Read”, there is an analysis of the arguments for and against censorship from which I should like to read only one salient paragraph. It must be recognized that, as is the case in this House, and as has been argued by hon. members opposite, there are different concepts of freedom —for example, the freedom which is described as being completely loose, irresponsible; and the freedom to do the right thing under the control of the State. This is recognized by the people who drew up this report for the National Book Council in America. On page 8, they say—

Perhaps the hon. the Minister will remember that.

How true, Mr. Speaker! And what does the Minister think will happen to his board, or whatever he calls it, except that the power which it will exercise over the written word and over the work of art will in the nature of things corrupt that board—in the sense that it will no longer be able to exercise even a subjective, let alone an objective, judgment.

Are you satisfied with the present system?

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort was at pains yesterday to say that he had written a certain letter in 1959 urging the appointment of a board of not more than seven or eight members as compared with the present board. Obviously, he is not in favour of the present system because he has sedulously advocated a new system for a reason which may become clearer in the near future! I can only hope that we will not have a vacancy here as a side-effect to the appointment of the Chairman of Publications Control Board!

As far as I am concerned, I do not hold for a moment—and this in answer to the hon. member’s question—that the present position is good. What I do say, however, and without any hesitation, is that it is certainly preferable, i.e. the present means for the control of what is obscene and objectionable, to the method which the hon. member for Fort Beaufort seems to advocate so strenuously.

I now want to quote one example of what an official, whether he is called the chairman of a board of publications, or whether he is a customs official, can do when he is charged with the task of condemning, in the sense that he can ban a book. I have here a book. I do not know whether it is banned or not. I will not mention its title because, as you know, the moment you ban a book, up goes its sale. On the 7th March, last year, the Burger wrote in an editorial under the heading “Sensuurbesluite”, the following—

And so, I am not going to give this book a gratuitous advertisement. But in it, on page 87, the word about which the famous case in England—Rex v. Penguin Books—turned, is mentioned three times in one line, and four times in one line on page 88. Shall I read it Mr. Speaker? [Interjections.]

No!

Then I think I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that although this book would be condemned here as a paperback, it is still sold in a paperback edition in the United States for 95c. But what is more, it was originally published at a price of $5 95c. i.e. the equivalent of R4.50. It was a bestseller. Millions of copies were sold. And yet in terms of what we are trying to set up in the Bill which is now before us, this book would be banned here. I have no personal objection to this book being banned.

Have you already decided for the publications board?

Must I read to the hon. the Minister what his own Bill provides namely, that what is indecent, what is obscene, or offensive to public morals will be decided by the Publications Board which will not have any regard …

Have you already decided for the publications board?

No, Sir. The board will not have any regard to the artistic merit of the work as a whole, but merely to one aspect which is the use of a single word which is regarded as being indecent and offensive to public morals.

Now you are talking nonsense!

But the hon. the Minister said so; it is no use hon. members saying “nonsense". For this reason, as well as for others, it does seem to me that as Minister of Education, Arts and Science, the hon. gentleman should, even at this late stage, exercise his influence in the interests of the people of South Africa, in the interests certainly of the artists—writers and poets, sculptors and painters of South Africa—and certainly in the interests of the good name of South Africa, and either withdraw this Bill, or take the advice which the Opposition has tried to tender to him in this debate, i.e. to amend the Bill in such a way as to make it much more workable than it appears to be to-day.

Finally, Sir, I should like to give the hon. the Minister an example of what will happen in Cape Town, for instance, when the mail boat arrives on a Thursday with, say, 300 new titles for a particular bookseller who supplies bookshops as well as libraries throughout the country. This man has a business to run, and he has an obligation to his clients, let alone to the reading public. But there he sits with a shipment of 300 titles which has arrived on the Thursday afternoon; he has unpacked them and wants to start selling them although he has not the faintest idea of what those books contain. So, what does the hon. the Minister and his Publications Control Board expect this particular bookseller to do? Is he to read every one of the 300 titles, or is he to go to court, first of all, about every one of them—and if he loses, appeal and wait another year? Or is he to, what is called, “take a chance” on infringing a law, which will not only cost him money but will bring him into serious disrepute with the State and with the public?

A typical case such as this should also be considered in the interest of the general public. I sincerely hope, therefore, that for all these considerations—and there is a mass of evidence to show that these are valid considerations—the hon. the Minister, in his capacity of Minister of Education, Arts and Science, will think again about what he believes to be the merits of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, after having listened to the speeches which have been made thus far by hon. members of the Opposition, I am more than ever convinced that this is an excellent Bill and that the only trouble is that it was not introduced by the United Party but by the National Party Government! Apparently it is an excellent Bill.

Another thing which also struck me during the debate was that neither the hon. member for Turffontein nor the hon. member for Orange Grove, that is to say, the two main speakers on the Opposition side, was present at the meetings of the Select Committee when the clauses of the Bill were discussed. When the clauses were discussed the United Party was represented by only two members, namely, the hon. member for Springs and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South). The others were not there. The hon. member for Turffontein who was the chief speaker on the Opposition side in this debate, did not participate in the discussion on those clauses. That was the interest that the United Party showed in this Bill! I have the report of the Select Committee here before me. The last discussion took place on the 18th of April. All the clauses of the Bill were then discussed. The only members of the United Party present at that meeting were Messrs. Tucker and Plewman. None of the other United Party members was there. Later, on 16th May, 1962, without his having taken any part in the discussion on the clauses of the Bill, the hon. member for Turffontein made a statement to the Sunday Times. The hon. member looks most surprised to hear this; apparently he does not even know that he issued that statement! But there was another thing which struck me in connection with the Select Committee, namely, the attacks which were made here against the proposed Board, a Board, as has already been said, which is similar to a Board which has been in existence since 1931, in other words, for about 32 years, during 15 of which the United Party was in power and that Party did not find it necessary to change that Board. They never had any objection to that Board.

Clauses 2, 3, and 4 of this Bill deal with the composition of the Board. What happened when these clauses were put on the Select Committee? According to a report of the Committee the Chairman put clauses 2 to 4 which were agreed to, and these clauses deal with the composition and functions of the Board!

Did the hon. member for Turffontein vote against them?

He was not there! They cannot say that this took place in the recess and that because of that fact they could not hold a caucus meeting. This meeting was held on a Wednesday during the Session, that is to say, the day after their caucus. They must surely have decided to vote against the establishment of the Board. But what happened? On the Wednesday they voted for it!

But the hon. member for Bezuidenhout went further and even cast reflections upon the composition of the Board. He said that it would be a Board appointed by the Minister and that it would therefore only carry out the duties entrusted to it by the Minister. The hon. member forgets, however, that a Mr. Kincaid, amongst others, was also Chairman of this Board in the past. I am sure that he was not a Nationalist, but nevertheless he was Chairman of the Board which was set up in 1931, some years after the National Party had come into power. The hon. member went further and suggested that a committee of the House of Assembly should be appointed because, as he said, the matter should not go to the courts of law. Court procedure was too cumbersome and too expensive! In one breath therefore, they say that these things should be decided upon by a court of law, and in the next breath they say that they do not want a court.

I want to deal now with the clauses to which particular objection was taken by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) and here I want to mention Clause 5 (2) particularly. Why did he not object to the first part dealing with “indecency ”? He objected to all the others and said that the provisions were too vague and too wide. But what about “obscene ”? Is it not too vague also and is its meaning also not too wide? It was in precisely this connection that the following opinion was expressed in America in this regard—

Why does the hon. member only object to the other provisions, namely, those dealing with blasphemy or which bring any other section of the population into ridicule or contempt, or which have a detrimental effect upon relationships between the national groups and so forth? The reason for their attitude is that they are trying to make some political capital out of this. There is no other reason for their objection to these particular provisions.

They object therefore to the provisions dealing with blasphemy and religious convictions but the same wording appears in the 1931 Act namely—

That is absolutely the same wording as that incorporated in the present Bill. As I say, they also object to the provisions in regard to literature which is harmful to relationships between any sections of the inhabitants of the Republic or which brings them into ridicule or contempt. But in the 1931 Act we had the same provision, namely—

That is the same wording as that incorporated in the present Bill. The hon. member also objected to paragraph (f). In the Select Committee they agreed to (a) but objected to (b) to (f). What is the position in regard to (f)? The very same wording which appears in that paragraph also appears in the British Act which has existed since 1926. I want you to look at the Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act, 1926, and there you will see that the provisions of paragraph (a) of Section 1 (1) are the same as those of (f) (i) of our Bill, namely—

1. (a) in relation to any judicial proceedings any indecent matter or indecent medical, surgical or physiological details being matter or details the publication of which would be calculated to injure public morals.

That Act goes even further and provides—

1. (b) in relation to any judicial proceedings for dissolution of marriage, for nullity of marriage, or for judicial separation, or for restitution of conjugal rights, any particulars other than the following, that is to say—
   1. (i) the names, addresses and occupations of the parties and witnesses;
   2. (ii) a concise statement of the charges, defences and countercharges in support of which evidence has been given;
   3. (iii) submissions on any point of law arising in the course of the proceedings …
   4. (iv) the summing-up of the judge …

This is absolutely the same wording as that found in paragraph (f) of our Bill, but nevertheless the Opposition object to it.

I want to come now to Clause 5 (5) to which objection was also taken. This sub-section empowers the Minister to give certain books to certain persons or institutions, in other words, to grant them exemption. Nevertheless, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout contended that universities, for example, would not be able to obtain books of a certain standard. But, this sub-section states quite clearly—

that is to say, universities as well. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) went on to say that this provision was “alarming”, because the Minister was giving the board the right to allow universities to obtain certain books! I would like to know from the hon. member what he finds so alarming in this provision? Let him mention one reason why he holds this view. He is silent.

The hon. member also objected to Clause 6 and said “it makes a nullity of mens rea ”; in other words, he maintains that the element of this Bill does not make any difference; it should have been written into the Bill. But there are many laws in terms of which the state need not prove intent. In this connection I want to thank the hon. member for Innesdale for a quotation which he made available to me in connection with this question of intent. This quotation appears in the issue of Newsweek of 28 January 1963 and reads as follows—

That is what hon. members here want. In the second instance he also said: “It leaves the court to establish a case instead of the prosecution.” But that is not true; that is not the correct interpretation. When an appeal is lodged against anything which is done under this law, the State will place certain evidence before the Judge. The defence will place certain evidence before the Judge and it is on that evidence that the court will decide. This is not a case where the court is going to make the law or give a verdict without any evidence having been led. The hon. member strongly attacked Clause 6. I want to draw his attention to the wording of Clause 6 (1) (a). These are not merely words which have been inserted by the Department—

He objected to the words “if, in the opinion of the court” because he said that the court would have to make out a case—

Those are words taken from British law. words which have appeared for nearly 100 years in British law. In 1868 they appeared for the first time in a judgment by Mr. Chief Justice Lord Cockburn in the case of The Queen v. Hicklin—

In 1954 Lord Goddard said the following in the famous case of Rex v. Reiter: “That the law is still the same as it was in 1868 ”. He gave his> decision on that point. He said that certain things had changed since the days of Queen Victoria but he went on to say—

The penalties laid down in this Bill are very limited in comparison with the penalty imposed by Lord Goddard. There were various persons before that court. Two persons were accused and were given six months’ imprisonment for the first offence. This Bill provides for a minimum of six months after the third offence. They went further; there were also three companies which printed the books and published them. Each one of those companies was fined £2,000—not R2,000 as in this Bill.

A support was forthcoming here yesterday for the paperback editions. Everyone said that it was wrong that paperbacks should be banned because the Homers and the Miltons and all the rest of them are published in paperbacks. The Cronje Report has been criticized here to-day. Many of the things stated in the Cronje Report are possibly open to criticism but they collected facts which were irrefutable, facts which the Opposition side of the House did not criticize. On page 8 the Cronje Report states—

That was 12 years ago but the proportion is probably still about the same—

I say that this report may be wrong but none of the hon. members here criticized any of the facts submitted to the Cronje Commission. The Cronje Report went further. They inquired into the question of paperbacks, which at the time were banned by the Minister. This was their finding—

I do not want to read out long quotations but they also inquired into the position in America. According to a study which was made by the New York State Joint Legislative Committee to Study Publications of Comics in 1955, the following was stated: “it is a disgrace to the American people.” This is the type of book that the Opposition want to defend. Those books do not stay in America; they are off-loaded here in South Africa. The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) went further and said that control would hamper the literary development of this country. He suddenly developed a very soft spot for South African literature. He said that South African literature was going to be the first victim of this control. I wonder how many Afrikaans books the hon. member for Turffontein has read over the past ten years. While I am on this point, Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the Book Trade Association of South Africa wrote a letter to the Cape Times. They did not send one to Members of Parliament; they did not send this letter to any of us. No, they sent a letter to the Cape Times. They used the same argument as the hon. member for Turffontein when they said—

They suddenly hit upon the argument that Afrikaans literature was vulnerable in this respect. The hon. member for Turffontein took evasive action just now when I asked him how many books he had read. He is now asking the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) to help him; she has to tell him how many books he has read, but that will not help him.

The commission tried to determine whether this would hamper the sound development of our literature. One-third of the witnesses said that there were certain dangers in this connection but the majority, that is to say two-thirds, said that the development of our literature would not be affected. The witnesses were then asked what the effect upon our literature would be if this undesirable literature were allowed to enter the country. They all replied that it would have an undesirable effect upon the healthy growth of our literature here. It is very easy to ask about the position in England and the position in America. In speaking of those countries I am told by hon. members of the Opposition: “No, that is wrong; talk about South Africa ”. Let me tell them what the position is in South Africa. We must always remember that South Africa does not have a homogeneous population. We have to deal with various races here, races at various stages of development. We have the Natives here and they get hold of these things. In point of fact that was one aspect which the Cronje Commission investigated and it found that these pictures and books and the other things had a very bad influence on the Bantu. They investigated certain residential areas near Pretoria— Vlakfontein amongst others. In each four groups of 50 houses a total of 69 illustrations, including photographs of White women, were found; the number per 50 houses fluctuated from 15 to 19. Vlakfontein, the latest residential area, produced the smallest number, namely 15. In the three old areas there was practically no fluctuation in the figures, namely 17, 18 and 19. The number of places where these things appeared was exactly 50, or an incidence of 25 per cent in cases of families. Of the 69 illustrations, 39 were undesirable and 30 passable. In 30 homes undesirable illustrations of White women were found, or a percentage incidence of 15. You will find this information on page 62 of the report. [Interjections.] The hon. member has apparently not read the Cronje Report. I do not want to read all the information on pages 61, 62 and 63. What is apparent from the Cronje Report is that the Bantu keep the photographs of White women and not non-White women. In one house they found a photograph of a non-White woman. The rest were all of White women and, as I have indicated, most of them were undesirable. I say that for that reason alone this Bill is necessary.

Reference was also made here to the criticism of certain writers. Now suddenly they rely on people like Rob Antonissen, F. A. Venter, an Ettienne le Roux and Andre Brink. When it suits them they quote Guy Butler but in this connection they do not quote Guy Butler. I have great respect for Antonissen. He is not a writer of romances of any kind. He is a literary critic and a literary writer. F. A. Venter’s books are of such a high standard that nobody would be silly enough to interfere with his books. Etienne le Roux is a young writer. His father was Minister of Agriculture in the Cabinet. His latest book “Sewe Dae by die Silbesteins” is a fine book; nobody would ban that book. Andre Brink’s latest book is “Lobola vir die Lewe”, a book which has been described as very daring, although a book written by a person like W. E. G. Louw is described as a new direction in Afrikaans literature. It is not for me to pass judgment in this regard. Hon. members say: “This is an unsatisfactory Bill”, while all these things already exist either in our laws or in laws abroad.

I want to return to this Book Trade Association of Southern Africa. They wrote a letter to the Cape Times. In the first place, who are they? I do not know who they are. They do not say from whom they receive their instructions; we do not know whether they held a meeting and received instructions to write a letter of this nature to the Cape Times. I wonder whether the members of that Association know that this letter was sent to the Cape Times? As I indicated just now, it is a strange thing to my mind that the Cape Times, of all newspapers, was selected to publish that letter during this debate. Why was the letter not sent to one of our members of Parliament? Why did the hon. member for Turffontein not receive that letter? Perhaps they no longer have any confidence in him.

The hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) referred to the Jewish Board of Deputies, which has now become confused in their statements. It submitted a memorandum to the Select Committee in which it objected to Clauses 5 (2) (c), (d) and (f), dealing with blasphemy and the bringing of a section of the inhabitants in the Republic into ridicule or contempt. In January 1963 Professor Bein-art sent in a copy at the request of the Civil Rights League of Cape Town, and there he accepted the whole of this position as it now stands in the Bill. I do not think that the hon. member for Vereeniging saw it. Whereas first they condemned it they are now quite prepared to accept (a) and (b) just as they stand. What is the position of the Minister? In May 1962 the Board of Deputies said one thing; in January 1963 they say something else. In May 1962 the representatives of the United Party on the Select Committee said one thing; those same people come along in January 1963 and say something else in this House. Must the hon. Minister, with all the talk of those hon. members, accept their recommendations and incorporate them in a law or not? It would be an impossible task for any Minister of any Government to make provision for all this cross-talk. The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) said this evening, unless I am mistaken, that he accepted this board. But the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) did not accept the board. We must also understand the position of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He always does the opposite to the other members of his party. Already we have the first signs of his starting to do so. The United Party accepts one thing but the hon. member for Bezuidenhout accepts another thing.

I want to ask the hon. member whether he said that he understood that I accepted this board?

That was what I inferred.

That is not correct.

No matter what the position is, there has been so much talk by members of the United Party that they no longer have any idea themselves of what they want. To tell the truth I do not think that they have any idea of what they want. But when the Cape Times and the Sunday Times came forward with their articles, the United Party had to react. They reacted in such a way that even the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman) took certain sentences and certain words from the article in the Sunday Times. He spoke about the word “undesirable” and he said: “It is an ominous word ”. That same word was used by the Sunday Times: “The Bill introduces an ominous new word ”. The hon. member for Post Elizabeth (South) used exactly the same words as the Sunday Times. All that I want to prove is that hon. members opposite were unready to oppose this legislation but when the Sunday Times came forward with its opposition, they made use not only of its ideas but even its words and sentences. One of the clauses states that any person may complain, and they objected to this provision. The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) used the word “snoopers ”. He said that snoopers could operate.

Quite correct.

Yes, quite correct. The Sunday Times also said so. The Sunday Times said—

Those very words were used by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South). Hon. members opposite do not have their own ideas; they do not have any thoughts of their own and therefore I think, Mr. Speaker, that they ought actually to vote for this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, in listening to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) (Mr. J. A. F. Nel) quoting from these newspapers, I noticed that when he referred to the article in this morning’s Cape Times he refrained from quoting from that. That is the letter from the Book Trade Association of Southern Africa. According to this article the Book Trade Association said in their memorandum—

In listening to the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (North) and many hon. members opposite giving unreserved support to this Bill, it is indeed sad to me to see the descendants of the freedom-loving Voortrekkers subscribing to these most drastic regulations which are restrictions on their freedom of thought and their rights, freedom and rights which their forefathers relentlessly fought for—the Huguenots and the good Calvinists in their countries of origin. Yet what do we see to-day, Sir?

In supporting the amendment put forward by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) I wish to say that I do not wish to repeat all the general principles that have been most ably represented on this side of the House by my colleagues but in omitting these I wish to demonstrate to the hon. the Minister in a concrete manner the absurdity of Clause 8 of this Bill and the difficulties which will be experienced in certain other of these clauses. I should like to say at this point that I cannot share the hon. Minister’s optimism about the establishment of the Publications Control Board. If the hon. the Minister will turn to Clause 2 (4) he will notice that it says that “the period and conditions of office, remuneration and allowances of the members of the board shall be as prescribed”, I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that no term of office whatsoever is laid down in this Bill. It merely says it will be prescribed by regulation and in the regulations which we find on page 14 of this Bill no period of office is laid down for these board members at all. The hon. the Minister will recollect that in the National Education Advisory Council Act of last year an actual term of office of five years was laid down with powers of re-appointment. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister how it is that this has not been laid down in this Bill under this clause? If similar provisions are not laid down here I feel that, while I do not advocate in any way that the Minister should be so tied up by provisions that discretion means absolutely nothing at all, there is an essential need for it, in this clause to provide that when probably excellent members consider serving on this board they should feel that they are taking up a position that will give them a certain number of years of service on this board. Will they be expected to jettison their present positions and possible pensions rights to serve on this board when they do not know how many years’ service they will get? That, I think, would apply to those who are not in the full-time service of the State. Surely some measure of continuity must be laid down in the construction of a board. There is also the other point of view, Mr. Speaker. In order to obviate the continuance of a lot of “dead wood” on this board an exact period of office must be laid down, otherwise it may preclude good members from serving on it. I would therefore like to ask the hon. the Minister concerning this clause whether he is going to regulate the number of years of service with the right of re-appointment. This criticism also applies to page 14 where the regulations are set down. I shall be very interested to hear what the hon. the Minister’s views are on this when he replies.

There is a second point regarding the composition of this board. The hon. the Minister will recollect that last year on 16 June in this House he said—I quote from Hansard Vol. 4 1962—

Following upon the Minister’s analysis of the population figures I feel therefore that logically the Minister should appoint 43 per cent English-speaking members and 53 per cent Afrikaans-speaking members. May I say that this could very easily be done because we have the required number of well qualified persons who are very able to serve on any such board from both the language groups.

Turning to Clause 8 of this Bill that we are analysing—this has already been raised by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth (South) (Mr. Plewman)—I find that the wording is ambiguous as it now stands. As it now stands it may encroach on the freedom of the individual. It may mean that “at the request of any person” the board should have the power “to examine any object or publication and to state whether that publication or object is in the opinion of the board undesirable”, The definition of “object” and “publication” on page 1 of this Bill is very wide. “Object” or “publication” may be the private possession of any citizen in South Africa. It may be a painting or a print or a statue in a private home. This clause as it is now worded gives any busy-body the right to ask the board, on the payment of a fee, to investigate such object in a private person’s home and thereby try to cause annoyance, frustration and interference with a citizen’s rights and the right of life in their homes. People of malicious nature, as we know very well, could by simply paying the fee oblige the board to investigate any publication or object. This might be in the possession not only of private people but in the possession of a library, a university; it might be in a collection. For example, Sir, we might say that the library left by Cecil Rhodes in Groote Schuur for the use of the Prime Ministers of South Africa may, for all we know, contain certain documents or papers or books that are offensive to this present Government. Under this clause as it is now worded the power is there for “any person” to ask the board to investigate that object or publication and it could be banned. If this clause goes through in its present form what is going to happen? Are we going to have Hitler types of bonfires of banned books and objects of art? Surely, Sir, the absurdity of this Clause 8 clearly demonstrates that the hon. the Minister cannot have intended this clause for the purposes for which in its present form it could be used. I submit with due respect, Mr. Speaker that the wording of this clause is unnecessarily wide. As it stands in the Bill it could be misused. Therefore I would like to ask the hon. the Minister to consider the implications of this Clause 8 very seriously and very carefully. I would like to ask him whether he would not find it possible to tie it down more specifically. Because obviously it should refer only to objects and publications which are to be imported or sold in South Africa and not to those already in the private possession of libraries or collections or universities or private people. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister concerning this clause whether it is the Minister’s intention for the clause to mean exactly what it means when it is read? Or will the hon. the Minister explain to this House exactly what the meaning of this clause is? Will the hon. the Minister give us his views on tying down this clause so that it may not infringe on the rights of individuals, on people in their homes? I trust that that is not what the hon. the Minister intended. I feel that the present Bill is a further demonstration of the conflict that has arisen between the right of society and the state to protect itself against subversion and also between the perversity of departmental bureaucracy, finding satisfaction in pushing forward its powers in restrictive measures like this. In this conflict as presented to us by this present Bill we see the strength of religious belief and the moral strength and the good solid common sense of the citizens ignored. The Government assumes that it is only they and their ideas and regulations as embodied in the Bill before us that can help the morality and also the political loyalty of the citizens. By this very faulty assumption of the Government, they are led into the maze of regulations and restrictions that we find in many of the clauses of this Bill. The result is a further step in circumscribing the freedom of the individual. Mr. Speaker, all these restrictions are proof that the Government does not trust its own citizens, and that it underestimates their intelligence, the intelligence and the strength and the moral force, not only of its own supporters, but also of its opponents. I feel that we on this side of the House cannot share the hon. Minister’s lack of confidence in the moral integrity of the Afrikaans and the English-speaking peoples of South Africa as set out in this Bill. I shall be very interested to hear from the hon. the Minister after the representations put forward from this side of the House, as to what he intends to do with this Bill and with the restrictive clauses that are in it.

The hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) said this evening: “The Minister finds himself in a very peculiar position.” May I tell the hon. member that his party finds itself in that position, and their peculiar position is due to the fact that they find themselves on the horns of a dilemma and do not know how to extricate themselves. I will do so for them but then I fear that they will fall to the political wastepaper basket, which is the proper place for such a party.

Let us investigate the matter. The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) who moved the Opposition’s amendment, said here in the presence of all of us that he was satisfied with the existing legislation. His seconder, the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) said on the other hand that he was not satisfied with the existing legislation. The hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss) said during the course of her speech that she supported the amendment moved by the hon. member for Turffontein, namely, that they did not want this Bill to be considered in the House this year. In the same breath the hon. member asked the hon. the Minister to accept certain amendments to the clauses. Then we had another case where the organization representing South African Jewry appeared before the Select Committee and asked first for one thing and later for something else, but we will confine ourselves to the last request. They asked that certain things which are prohibited in this Bill be forbidden and now the Jewish members of the United Party not only raise their voices against it but they are all going to vote against it. They are indeed in a peculiar position!

When we speak about the existing legislation I want to say for the sake of the record that the existing legislation which is used to combat pornographic or indecent literature in the four provinces of the Republic and South West Africa is embodied in no less than 33 laws and ordinances. These laws date from 1873 to 1946, and of the 33 laws not one of them was placed on the Statute Book by a National Party Government alone. I want to mention them. Firstly, let us take the Cape Provincial Council. Here are the ordinances of the Cape Province which are of application: Ordinance 9 of 1926, Act 18 of 1873, Act 27 of 1882, Act 9 of 1889, Act 31 of 1892, Act 21 of 1894, Act 36 of 1902. South West Africa: Statute Ordinance 5 of 1926. We come to the Transvaal: Ordinance 1 of 1920, Act 13 of 1880, Act 38 of 1909. In Natal we have Ordinance 21 of 1942. Do you know what the joke is in this regard? In Section 191 of that Ordinance Natal gives municipal councils the power to control indecent literature, letters and so forth. The Central Government is not allowed to exercise control but in Natal the Provincial Council gives the municipalities that right. We also have Act No. 40 of 1894 and Act 22 of 1898 in Natal. We come to the Orange Free State: Ordinance 21 of 1902, Ordinance 3 of 1916, Ordinance 17 of 1922, Ordinance 19 of 1928, Ordinance 4 of 1931, Ordinance 15 of 1935. We come to the laws of the Union: Act 10 of 1911, Act 19 of 1911, Act 13 of 1912, Act 27 of 1914, Act 22 of 1916, Act 26 of 1917, Act 31 of 1917, Act 36 of 1919, Act 20 of 1926, Act 38 of 1931, Act 31 of 1937, Act 35 of 1944 and Act 46 of 1946. Under all 33 of these laws the police have to know precisely when they have to act and how they have to act. Many of the laws play into the hands of “snoopers ”. Hon. members speak about snoopers. The hon. member for Turffontein says that he is satisfied with that legislation and that it is adequate, notwithstanding the fact that some of the laws which I have mentioned play into the hands of snoopers. Many of these laws, with which the hon. member for Turffontein is satisfied, are obsolete. Do you know that 30 years ago a man was found guilty by a magistrate here in Cape Town and fined because he was apparently indecently dressed on Woodstock beach? What was he wearing? He had on an ordinary pair of shorts but his upper body and his legs were bare! That law is still on the Statute Book but nobody would dream of applying that obsolete law where we have bikinis and briefs on our beaches nowadays. But the hon. member says that he is satisfied. To illustrate the stupidity of his argument further, let us cross for a moment to that exemplary province, Natal. There they have Act 22 of 1898 which reads as follows—

Do they regard that law as being the “Natal Stand ”? Has the time not come for us to have a law which is consolidated so that we can deal more effectively with these matters? In the Cape Province one has this difficulty with existing legislation that one cannot take action— the fact is that the offence must take place in public. For the purpose which we have in mind, therefore this fact renders useless the laws which we have to-day.

Ten years ago I was one of the three members who asked for an investigation into this sort of undesirable and indecent literature. I still remember that the three members were the then member of Groblersdal, the hon. member for Vredefort and myself. A commission was appointed the next year. But what was the standpoint of the United Party in 1953, 10 years ago? I have the Hansard report before me. I will not weary the House with quotations. Their standpoint was that we should leave the whole matter because it was far too involved. What is their standpoint to-day, 10 years later? to-day they say that a law of this nature is much too dangerous. They have suddenly become most interested in our young Afrikaans literature. They are afraid that this dangerous Bill may lead to the destruction of future Afrikaans Shakespeares, Chaucers or Bernard Shaws before they have a chance to write. But have hon. members thought of the other aspect of the matter? I am sorry that the hon. member for Hospital is not here, because he and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout are apparently supporters of those who say: “Art for arts sake One can sign or write any dirty, vile, indecent thing and have it published if there are people like themselves who describe it as art. Do they want us to have a Gautier in South Africa? Do they know who he was? He was one of the French leaders of the movement to introduce realism into literature. to-day they have already gone as far as naturalism. He was one of the great leaders and when he was free to go as far as he wanted to, what did Gautier suggest? I want to ask hon. members what we should do with this type of person whom we find in our midst in South Africa to-day. Gautier suggested that a prize should be awarded to the person who succeeded in discovering one more cardinal form of indecency! I say that Gautier of France has his supporters here and hon. members who oppose this Bill and who sat on the Select Committee must realize that that is so because of the evidence adduced before the Committee. (Quorum) I repeat: Do hon. members want a Gautier and people of his calibre in South Africa? If they do not, they must say so. If like the hon. member for Orange Grove, they are not satisfied, with existing legislation they must say which of those 33 ordinances and laws they want repealed or amended. The evidence has shown that this sort of literature is increasing in South Africa and it is very profitable for dealers in this rubbish in South Africa. Do you know that one of their editors on the Rand earned R6,000 per annum 10 years ago? Do you know that one of those periodicals paid £3,000 for the exclusive rights to one article by a man who had committed a foul murder, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and who was later released to tell his story? Do you know what their new tactics are? They come along with a sandwich. They start and finish the article with a moral lecture but in between the moral lectures they pack the most sensational and vile things that one could imagine and these fall into the hands of our children. Mr. Speaker, the same people who talk about the control of our Press, or rather the censorship or our Press, should listen for a moment to what I want to quote from the “British Press” by H. A. Taylor, because it fits our Press so well—

Not one of the laws exercising that control is amongst those 33 laws and ordinances which I mentioned. Hon. members opposite say that we must throw in the towel because the whole thing is too involved and too dangerous. To whom must we surrender? To people who do not care a scrap how much mental poison they pump into our people as long as they can make money out of it, unscrupulous people who care nothing for the moral feelings or moral standards of the people of South Africa? Then hon. members want to allow these people free rein to spread filth and pornography and blasphemy and offensiveness or, if you prefer it, to spread communist or subversive propaganda. That is what they are suggesting. We must surrender to that type of person. We must simply shrug off the responsibility which rests upon us as it does upon any civilized nation and we must say that this thing is too involved and too dangerous for us. I want to admit that realism or art, pornography and all these things are relative ideas, and if one places a law on the Statute Book, it is quite possible that in 20, 30 or 40 years that law will have become completely obsolete. It is then for that generation to say that the legislation no longer serves its purpose and is no longer necessary. In the days in which are living, however, this Bill is certainly necessary.

They say that this matter is very dangerous and involved, but what is more dangerous than poison in the hands of a person who does not know how to use poison? He only knows that he can use it to kill an animal or a person. One has the intricate medical course followed by our doctors. One has dentists, veterinary surgeons, chemists—all people who work with a large variety of poisons which they use to good purpose and in the correct quantities in order to alleviate pain or to save the lives of human beings or animals. If we find it necessary to control the giving of poison to an animal or person by legislation in our country, and to control it so strictly that on each phial of pills or medicine dispensed, the type of poison it contains and its quantity has to be indicated, are we going to be so weak-kneed that we are not going to pass legislation in South Africa to prevent the spiritual life, the moral life of our nation—the norm of what is decent and what is indecent—from being exposed, without redress, to the steadily increasing doses of that poison of the soul? That was the evidence adduced before the Select Committee. It was precisely in the light of that evidence that the Government decided to introduce this Bill. I say that if we take the speeches of members of the official Opposition as they have been recorded in Hansard, we will find that I was correct when I said at the start of my speech that they are not only in a peculiar position but that they find themselves on the horns of a dilemma and they do not know how to extricate themselves from the dilemma because they know that if we get them out of their difficulties they will find themselves in the political wastepaper basket which is the proper place for them.

Listening to the hon. member for Karas (Mr. von Moltke), one immediately gets the impression that he has in a somewhat hysterical manner tried to follow an unfortunate theme which the hon. the Minister laid down in his opening words in this debate. I think some of us were somewhat taken aback when the hon. the Minister suggested that unless a nation or a people were properly controlled, they either would tend to deteriorate to barbarism or they would in fact be merely a nation of barbarians. I wonder why the hon. the Minister found it necessary to make this peculiar allusion to the state of the people of South Africa in laying the theme of the justification for the introduction of this Bill to the House. I think it was a very unfortunate reference because somehow it seemed to bear no relation at all to the facts of the situation. The hon. Minister knows as well as most people, certainly as well as any member of this House, that there is a great deal of legislation dealing with many aspects of censorship and the control of publications, printed matter and the spoken word. He also knows that for some years the Government has been endeavouring to provide some Bill which will take the place of that various legislation, and at the same time to provide a form of control which they feel will prove satisfactory not only from the point of view of the security of the morals of the nation but also, one is somehow left to think, from the point of view of the security of the Government’s own policy and the policy of the party which it represents. This particular type of thinking has been almost consistent in the whole of the Government’s approach to many of the problems in this country. In fact when one looks back in perspective at some of the legislation and more particularly at the utterances of members of the Government, one is somehow led to crystallize one's thinking that the Government approaches every problem of the nation’s future with a sense of fear. The hon. member for Karas for instance used as one of his examples the fact that Communistic literature could be disseminated in this country and we, the members of the Opposition, were sufficiently disinterested in the life of the nation as not to agree to support the Minister in a Bill which would save the country from the effects of the dissemination of this type of literature. Of course he forgets to note that in the Suppression of Communism Act, Section 6 says—

In other words, there was legislation which protected our people from the harmful effects of the dissemination of literature of this character. One must therefore assume that the efforts of the Government over the last seven or eight years to bring a Bill of this nature before the House was to consolidate the existing legislation (which is contained not only in statutory legislation but also in ordinances of various provinces) so that there should be some consistency in the approach to this particular problem, which, as has been rightly pointed out, has exercised the minds and the attention and in fact the Statute Book of the other nations of the world. It is quite true that the hon. the Minister is not doing anything new; he is not doing anything original, in bringing that state of affairs about, because most civilized countries have some form of protection for the public with regard to the type of literature that is disseminated, especially these days when the printed word is so profusely distributed through so many forms of publication. But it would be interesting to note that this side of the House did move ten amendments in the Select Committee to the proposed Bill that was suggested by the majority of the Select Committee, and that all of these amendments were turned down. So it is no surprise to the hon. the Minister or members on his side of the House that this side of the House must take objection to this Bill in its present form.

Your people agreed to the principle.

It is accepted that both sides of the House find it desirable to have legislation which will avoid the dissemination of this type of literature, particularly in these days when we know there has been a loosening of some of the more conservative forms of thinking throughout the world, when there has been a straining of some of the bonds which have bound certain of our thinking over the years in the field of morality, in the field of family life. We realize as a nation which prizes the traditions of family life that it is important to protect our young people, our adolescents, and quite often our adults, against the type of literature which has been thrown onto the market in order to find a ready form of sale and so some form of income for almost any person who can put his pen to paper. Nevertheless we must approach this from an objective point of view and we must do so in the interests of the nation and not in the interests of any section of political thinking or in the interests of any section of the community. So whilst there is no doubt that both sides of the House want legislation either in a consolidated form to replace what is presently in the Statute. Book, or in any event desire that legislation should be maintained, that does not necessarily mean that this side of the House accepts the Bill as the Minister has placed it before us, and in fact we ask that this Bill be taken back because this is not what was asked for.

Let me just reiterate one or two facets about this Bill which we do not like. For instance the definition of the term “undesirable” is, as the hon. the Minister himself stated in his address, sufficiently vague to warrant the criticism of quite a wide field of interested persons', and I think his address in a sense almost apologized for that fact, but he felt that there was nothing vague about it at all. He said it was necessary to broaden the field so that the utmost protection could be provided. But Parliament always jealously watches the ambits of any form of bureaucratic control, which in a sense is contained in this Bill because there is not a right of appeal in respect of every aspect. For instance there is no right of appeal in regard to the cinematograph industry. There may be reasons for that. If the particular industry is satisfied that it can be left to the Minister himself, we will not quarrel with that. But nevertheless the fact remains that there is some form of bureaucratic control, and any form of bureaucratic control must be watched very jealously by Parliament in the interests of the nation. As that definition is vague, I think it is desirable, and it will appear from many of the memoranda which were lodged with the Select Committee, that there was some concern about the vagueness of that definition. The hon. member who spoke previously, and I think also the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) referred to the fact that a particular organization indicated its satisfaction with this legislation and accepted it. But if one looks at the Report of the Select Committee, one finds in fact that a considerable number of bodies, numbering in all 30, submitted letters and memoranda to the Select Committee. It seems clear from the debate that it was not found necessary to summon any of these bodies to give evidence. I am somewhat surprised therefore that stress is laid on one particular body, because I have no doubt that amongst the other memoranda objections of some nature were voiced. Various aspects of this Bill were canvassed and the Select Committee was fully aware that there was a complete cross-section of opinion, a great deal of which supported the fear of this Bill being wider than it should be in its implications or the control, or, as has been suggested, “the censorship” which it could command.

There is another aspect which I think is very important. The members of the Press Union have been excluded. But we must take into account that in 1950 a Press Commission was appointed. The whole Press of the country existed under a sword of Damocles, namely the Press Commission, with regard to its future and the control that might be exercised, or the incision that might be made into this jealously guarded industry. Some arrangement was come to between the Government and the Press Union in regard to some form of code whereby the Minister relied on the honour of the Press Union to honour the spirit of a certain code. But unless one is a member of that Press Union, one is not protected by that code and one therefore comes within the ambit of the Bill. Now, assuming that in the course of an election one were to issue propaganda which criticized the opposing party very severely, that pamphlet could be referred to the board because it does not come under the Press Union and it is a matter which under certain circumstances should be taken cognisance of as something which might promote or incite ill-feeling between certain sections of the community. There are other forms of political literature which are issued at election times or even between elections, and all these matters could be brought to the attention of the board. I do not think it can be seriously suggested, despite the approach of some of the Government members to the criticism of the Opposition, that our opposition to this Bill is to avoid some proper control over indecent or obscene literature. I think every South African accepts that it is necessary in die interests of the community, and I do not think there is the slightest doubt that there is any difference of opinion in that regard. I think some of the replies we have had from the Government side to-day have indicated a failure to appreciate what the purpose of the Opposition has been. Unfortunately that is the usual manner in which Government members approach any criticism from the Opposition. As South Africans, we all have one thing in common, and that is the protection of the interests of our country and its people, and we will always be at one with the Government when legislation is placed before the House, particularly after a Select Committee and after many years of effort on the part of the Minister to produce an acceptable Bill, if that Bill meets to some extent the wishes of the majority of the people.

Do not say that; prove it.

You have had memoranda from 30 organizations; you have had criticism from the very people who import this literature into the country, and no one can deny that our country has been very well served by some of these publishing organizations in South Africa, which have, from mushroom organizations, grown into some of the biggest and important organizations in the Western world. They have rendered a great service to S.A., not only in the field of general literature, but particularly by their contributions to the educational life of our country. All of us remember our days at school when some of these publishing organizations were our only means of access to any form of printed books. They went to great expense. I do not want to mention names, but some of the publishing organizations of this country have made a definite contribution to the welfare of this country at the expense of investors and at the expense of well-meaning South Africans and pioneers who sank all their worldly possessions into establishing a printing and publishing industry and putting South Africa on the map in the field of printed matter. This side of the House is opposing the Bill because it believes that this Bill is not what is wanted by both sides of the Select Committee, and the hon. the Minister should explain to us why it has taken three efforts eventually to bring a Bill before this House. Why was the Bill withdrawn a year or two ago from the Select Committee, and two years ago it was also withdrawn? Why was the Minister compelled to bow to criticism from all sections of the country? He had to withdraw the Bill and send it to a Select Committee again. Surely that must indicate that it has not been the easiest thing in the world for him to bring something before this House which is acceptable to the people of S.A. I do not want to repeat what has appeared in Dagbreek, but there is no point in members of the Government side laughing off what appeared in Dagbreek. We had some of the most eminent South African writers who commented on the matter. It is a newspaper which, despite the fact that it supports the Government, nevertheless enjoys prestige and is read far and wide. I feel that is the organ which any Government must take note of, particularly if it is the voice of the Government itself. Admittedly the Minister may say that it shows the democracy of the Government’s outlook that its own mouthpiece is prepared to be critical of it, but it cannot be dismissed like that; one has to take note of it.

The suggestion we make on this side of the House is that the Bill be read this day six months, which indicates our hope that the Bill will be withdrawn, and our conviction that the Minister still has not produced a Bill satisfactory to the House and that it falls into the category of the previous Bills which have been submitted. Finally, will the Minister go into greater detail and explain why he introduced the Bill on the note that unless there was control—and I assume that when he talks of control of the people he also incorporated control of what the people read—we would sink into a state of barbarism. If the Minister had spoken about a people being self-disciplined and exercising self-discipline in the face of serious problems, one could well understand that some philosophic thought might emanate from that expression of opinion, but to blatantly tell the House that unless there is control we will sink into a state of barbarism, thereby inferring that unless literature of all kinds is properly controlled in the manner suggested by the Minister, we would all deteriorate into a state of barbarism, I feel with all respect is a hysterical utterance which really cannot convince this side of the House or any critics of the legislation that the Minister really and sincerely has taken into account the viewpoint of all expressions of opinion in South Africa.

For those reasons I feel that the Minister owes a duty to the House to explain why he finds it necessary to place before us this broad picture and expect this side of the House to agree with him that this is the type of legislation that is necessary in the place of something which has already been in existence and which could merely have been consolidated and perhaps streamlined to a modern form acceptable to free Western nations.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller), who has just sat down, places one in an embarrassing position because one does not know whether one should congratulate him on his maiden speech. I think I would be nearer the mark if I congratulated him on his grass widower’s speech. But I might add by way of consolation that I noticed that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) listened to his speech attentively and sympathetically.

Having listened to this debate for nearly two days there is one conclusion to which one can come perhaps, and that is that the United Party in this debate has revealed itself as the champion of undesirable publications.

Nonsense!

Members on the other side adopted different attitudes. There was the moreoutspoken attitude, the attitude adopted by the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan), who not only condemns this legislation but also the existing legislation. He wants no censorship or restrictions whatsoever to be imposed by legislation. Then there was also the other attitude, the attitude adopted by the hon. member for Johannesburg (North) (Mrs. Weiss), who accepts or is prepared to accept certain proposals, but I say that on the whole the impression that the public must gain—and that is also the effect of their amendment—is that they are against the restriction of undesirable publications. I think all the various arguments raised on the other side have been replied to effectively, and I do not propose in the ten minutes at my disposal to enlarge upon it, but there is one argument which the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) advanced on which I should like to say a few words. The hon. member for Turffontein stated that under the existing legislation only one book, or very few books at any rate, had been banned over a certain number of years, while an enormous number was being banned to-day. But that is the very crux of this matter. If ever it was necessary to place legislation of this kind on the Statute Book it is to-day. Formerly there was no such pressing need to do so. In analysing the situation one finds that from 1939 to 1956 more or less 2, 800 publications were banned, but in the four years from 1956 to 1960 alone, 3, 500 books were banned. To my mind that indicates the extent to which these undesirable publications have flooded this country and the world. This is not a phenomenon that we have in South Africa only; it is a world-wide phenomenon. When one asks oneself what the explanation is, whether the standard of our literature and of our art has suddenly declined, one finds that during the last 20 years there has been a sort of liberalizing process which has been designed to spread the dialectic materialism of Karl Marx in a very delicate and deliberate way. This change has taken place not only in politics, but it has also left its imprint on art. What is happening is that the noble arts that we knew are being broken down one after another. The main purpose in art and in literature is no longer the upliftment of the soul but the glorification of the body—and we find that in every branch of our literature and art. To mention just a few examples, the music of Bach and Strauss and Chopin is being replaced to-day by jazz and cha-cha. Händel’s “Messiah” is being pushed aside and instead of that we are getting “Ag, Pleez Deddy” and “Die Bokke se Klok ”. In the sphere of singing, Benjamino Gigli and Enrico Caruso have been replaced by Elvis Presley.

In the sphere of fine arts we find that Leonardo da Vinci’s art is being ignored and replaced by abstract art which one can hardly understand. A few years ago there was an exhibition of abstract art in Paris and the art critics of the world praised a particular work as the ideal, and it was only after it had hung there for seven days that they discovered that it was hanging upside down. Nobody understood it. That is the direction in which art is going to-day. As a further indication as to how this liberalizing process has been taking place, I want to point out that our sculpture has advanced in the direction of Bushmen drawings. In our literature particularly there has been so much retrogression that the works of Milton and Wordsworth and Tennyson and Keats, Jan F. Cilliers and Goethe are being removed from the shelves and replaced by books bearing titles such as “Sex without Tears”, “The World of Suzy Wong”, “T.V. Scandals”, “Why I am not a Christian”, and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover ”. This liberalizing process that we find in our publications to-day we also find in politics, but I do not want to enlarge upon this because you will not allow me to do so, Mr. Speaker. I say that we must put a stop to this brutalization of man, this derogation from the high standards demanded over the centuries in our literature and in our art, otherwise we shall find ourselves in the situation later on that we shall be sorry and reproach ourselves for not having put a stop to it much sooner.

Various hon. members on the other side have quoted the opinions of a few Afrikaans writers who have allegedly expressed their views with regard to this legislation. I want to say at once that I do not believe that a single one of them had this Bill before him when he expressed his opinion. In addition to that one must distinguish between the two types of artists, on the one hand the artist who does creative work—I am thinking, for example, of a man like Frans Venter, a person whom I know very well, and his “Man van Cyrene”, a work of art that uplifts the soul—and on the other hand the quack in the artists’ gallery who sees art as a form of materialism and a way of making money. These quacks produce works on a large scale for the masses and they seek to make use of the animal instincts in man to sell their so-called art. I want to say that if the day should ever come when we in South Africa allow the quacks to dictate to us then we can give up everything that we treasure. Artists of that kind—and unfortunately we find them on a large scale to-day in our South African literature—are also a danger to the true artists, because of the type of art that is produced for the masses by the quacks. People no longer buy books like “Man van Cyrene” and other works. No, they buy the paperbacks, which concentrate on the human and the animal aspects.

If there is one fault to be found with this legislation which is before us it is the fact that it does not go far enough. That is my summing up. There are a few clauses, however, which disturb me and which I should like to bring to the Minister’s attention. In Clause 9 provision is made for the censoring of certain cinema films which may only be exhibited to certain classes. I accept that the intention here is that certain cinema films may only be shown to certain age-groups. The section in the old Act, which read the same, created the opportunity for abuses in two ways, one being that cinema-owners, as a result of this provision, would advertise, just to gain publicity for their films, that the film in question was only for persons over the age of 18 years, and people would then flock to the cinemas. I want to suggest to the Minister that where this is done by cinemas, stringent steps should be taken against them. Our experience has been that where such an age limit is imposed, persons below that age flock to the cinema without any action being taken against them. Here in the Cape I have seen films which have been advertised for the group over 18 years and I have seen children there whose age is nearer eight years than 18. I know of a cinema which advertised that a certain film could be shown only to those over 14 years; a child of 12 went to the owner and said that he was 12 but asked whether he could see it. The owner said that he would be welcome. I want to ask the Minister to give his attention to that type of evil.

In Clause 12 reference is made to entertainments, and here I have in mind the strip dancing which is taking place to-day and which is a great evil. However, that is where persons pay for their entertainment. But here in the Cape we have a certain place where one can have entertainment of the worst kind without paying for it. I am talking about the swimming in the nude at Graaff’s Pool, where there is nothing but a wall of about 6 ft. in height opposite a street where there is a block of flats of eight or nine storeys and in which everybody who wants a little entertainment swims in the nude. On a hot day when the pool is full I have seen school-girls and servants standing with binoculars in the upper storeys of their flats pointing to and looking at what is taking place there. Mr. Speaker, that pool is not a hundred paces from these flats, and an ordinary pair of binoculars can bring an object fifty times nearer. In other words, at that distance it can bring an object to within something like two paces, in other words, so close that one can almost touch it. [Laughter.] One of the first bodies which should be called to account with regard to this form of entertainment is surely the Cape Town City Council.

I also want to refer to Clause 5 (4) (b), and particularly (iii). There it is provided that the provisions of that clause shall not apply with reference to the printing or publishing of any matter in a publication of a technical, scientific nature bona fide intended for the advancement of or for use in any particular profession or branch of arts, literature or science. I am prepared to accept that that is a very good provision but I think there is one hiatus. I want to ask the Minister, in the case of really important original research works (particularly since the idea behind this measure is that it will put a stop to undesirable communist literature which is being imported into South Africa on a large scale) to allow that type of material to come in to certain approved libraries. One feels that the works of Lenin, Marx and Vishinsky are in fact of no value for the purpose of ordinary communist propaganda, but to the student they are of immense value. In this respect there is a great hiatus because those books are not available. I have made an analysis of those we have in the Parliamentary Library. We have something like 200 of them, but only a few of them are really original sources. The others are all revised works of the original sources. I want to ask the Minister to offer the opportunity to such universities and approved libraries to obtain books of that kind so that students of politics can have that material at their disposal, because I think that that is the only way in which one can really combat Communism, that is to say, by making use of works written by authorities and not by quacks. Those written by the quacks constitute propaganda which is easily digestible and makes a great impression on the masses, but if one wants to emphasize the real disadvantages of Communism, then the best method is to make use of the works of Andrei Vishinsky and other authorities.

I must conclude. We have heard various standpoints in this debate. At this late hour the United Party is still adopting a very frivolous attitude with regard to this legislation, but I want to put it this way that in considering this measure we have a responsibility not only to ourselves but also a responsibility towards the youth of South Africa because, after all, it is in the interests of the youth, the future nation of South Africa, that we are taking steps so that one day when they have to take over the reins they will see things in the right perspective and so that their thoughts and vision and actions will not be contaminated by undesirable publications.

Mr. Speaker, in the short while that I have before the adjournment I want heartily to congratulate hon. members on my side on having left me a very easy task and I want to thank them for having succeeded in dealing most effectively with the poor debating points made by the Opposition. It is a long time since I have attended a debate in which sophistries have been dealt with as effectively as in this debate. Very little remains for me to reply to. It was pathetic to listen for two days and see the mutual differences which exist between hon. members opposite in respect of very important principles. It was pathetic to realize that they all belong to the same party when the one said he wanted a board but not our board and another said that the old board that we had was quite good enough and yet a third stated that the old board was just as bad as the board that we wanted to set up. There was not even joint action or a planned attack on the Bill. But for the fact that every hon. member, after he had spoken, was replied to by one of the Government members, I would have had to give a very long reply on each point. I have quite a lot to say, however, and I cannot do it in the short time left to us and so I wish to move—

I second.

Agreed to.

On the motion of the Minister of Transport, the House adjourned at 10.20 p.m.