I move—

That the Bill be now read a second time.

This is a very brief Bill which consists of one paragraph only, merely containing figures. For the information of hon. members who have not had an opportunity to read the Acts referred to, the essence of it is simply that if this Bill is passed, the Chief Justice will in future receive a salary of R12,500, a Judge of appeal a salary of what is indicated here as £5,750, a Judge-President £5,250 and an ordinary Judge £5,000 or R10,000.

I may just add that hon. members may perhaps ask me why at this stage we are providing only for increased salaries without at the same time making an announcement in regard to pensions. I may inform hon. members in this regard that this matter is at present under consideration, and that if a statement has to be made it will be done later.

In regard to the salaries of Judges, I have no doubt at all that all hon. members on both sides of the House will welcome these increases, which amount to R 1,500, being granted at this stage. I think we are all convinced that our Judges deserve to be treated in this way. Perhaps just for the sake of the record and for the sake of hon. members who want to make comparisons, I may add that in terms of Act No. 16 of 1912 the salaries of Judges were determined for the first time. Of course that Act provides—and that is why we are here now—that Judges’ salaries, unlike other salaries, may be increased or reduced by Parliament from time to time, according to circumstances. It cannot be done administratively. The original Act, Act No. 16 of 1912, fixed the salary of the Chief Justice at £3,000, that of a Judge of appeal at £2,750, that of a Judge-President at £2,500, and that of an ordinary Judge at £2,250. It is interesting to note that this salary scale remained unchanged until 1934. Then for the first time Judges’ salaries were increased. That increase was £500 right through in respect of each of the categories I have just mentioned, from the Chief Justice down to the ordinary Judge. Between 1934 and 1948 the position remained constant, and then, in terms of Act 36 of 1948, another £500 was added to the salaries in each of the categories. That position again remained constant until 1952, when, in terms of Act 43 of 1952, a further £500 was added to the Judges’ salaries, and similarly in terms of Act 19 of 1958 a further £500 was added. Therefore altogether since 1912 the salaries have been increased four times, and if this Bill is passed it will be the fifth time. Hon. members will note that whereas on the former occasions it was increased by £500 or R1.000, it is now being increased by R1, 500 which is a definite improvement on the old position. I do not think it is necessary for me to motivate this Bill further. I have every reason to believe that all hon. members will welcome the fact that we are taking this step, and I move.

As the hon. the Minister has said this is a measure which enjoys the support of us all. We believe it is very important to maintain the status of our Judges. I am very glad that the increase on this occasion is slightly bigger than on the previous occasions. Even so, if one compares the value of money in 1912 with the value of money to-day, the probability is that the effective salaries of Judges to-day are, if anything, slightly less than they were in 1912.

Slightly higher.

It depends on the way one looks at it, but I personally believe that for practical purposes they are slightly less than they were in 1912. Nevertheless, Sir, the increase on this occasion is a substantial one. It has our very full support and we believe it is high time that the measure should have been placed on the Statute Book.

The hon. the Minister has referred to the question of Judges’ pensions. I am very glad that he made the announcement here, which he was good enough to give to me privately, that the question of Judges’ pensions was being investigated. We are very glad of that. We believe that it is most important that these gentlemen, who have held a very important office in this country to the very great honour of this country—our Judges compare with any in the world—when they come to their days of rest will receive an adequate pension to enable them to live in a manner worthy of the very great services which they have rendered over the years as Judges. We do hope that it will not be too long before the hon. the Minister comes to this House with the further measure. I hope that there too, Sir, the increase will be on a generous scale. We believe that this is a group of men who deserve well of this country. We should like to see them looked after as the present Judges are being looked after in this Bill. We support this measure wholeheartedly.

I should like to talk to Clause 5 in general, to the amendment of the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) and to the new amendment which stands on to-day’s Order Paper in my name. Nothing puts the standpoint of the Opposition in such a nutshell as the amendment moved by the hon. member for Germiston (District). We are in favour of publications mentioned in paragraph (a) of sub-section (2), i.e. publications which are “indecent or obscene or are offensive or harmful to public morals” being subjected to censorship. Therefore we stand wholeheartedly for retaining this sub-section in Clause 5. We are equally in favour of publications in the political sphere which are obviously communist propaganda being subject to censorship. There is indeed sufficient provision in the legislation of this country for that. In so far as publications are concerned which are defamatory and harmful to persons and institutions, the ordinary law is sufficient to deal with that.

We feel, however, that as soon as a Government wants wider powers than that, as soon as it wants more control over the freedom of speech and publication than this, it is then trying to attain an object which is in direct conflict with the basic principles of Western political and cultural freedom. Then we get the sort of control, with a view to censorship, which a newspaper like Dagbreek condemned, together with us, in a leading article as—

Now we continually hear from hon. members opposite the honeyed refrain of the Government that “we are just (taking these powers, but it is not our intention to use them wrongly ”. How often have we not heard that same refrain in this House? And if the Bill has been passed, and public opinion has been pacified, political freedom in our country is assailed and restricted step by step by the Government.

Where?

Just read your newspapers. The hon. the Minister of the Interior during the course of the debate stated pertinently that there was nothing in Clause 5 which made political censorship even possible. However, just look at sub-section (2) (e). In terms of that sub-section a publication may be adjudged as being undesirable and may be banned if it is “prejudicial to the safety of the State ”. “Prejudicial” is only a mild form of doing harm, and the concept “general welfare” is so wide that there can hardly be a standpoint in the social-political life of the country to which it cannot be applied. I invite hon. members opposite to mention any standpoint in the social-political life of South Africa which cannot be included under this paragraph. In this paragraph lies the key to political censorship, and consequently it is quite unacceptable to us as a democratic Opposition. And nobody who really has a regard for democratic freedoms can accept this section. The same applies to paragraph (d) of the same sub-section, viz. that a publication will be regarded as undesirable if it is “harmful to the relations between any sections of the inhabitants of the Republic ”.

Are you against it?

It is all a question of who interprets it, and I say that paragraphs (d) and (e) together are susceptible to any political interpretation. It is an open invitation to a quorum of four on the Control Board, if it is in any way anxious to show its loyalty to the Government, to apply improper political censorship. Now I want to put this question to the hon. the Minister pertinently: Supposing this side accepts his good faith and we accept that as long as he remains the Minister of the Interior it is not his intention to apply any political censorship, is he prepared to admit that paragraphs (d) and (e) as they stand can be used for political censorship? Will he admit that? Will he concede that, even though he might not want to do so, these sub-sections may be used for it? If the hon. the Minister denies that, I take it that they will have no objection to the amendment I now move—

1. (7) None of the provisions of this section shall in any way whatsoever be so construed by the board or a court as to have the effect of prohibiting any publication or object for political reasons or by reason of its political nature or criticism of the policy of the Government of the day, with the sole exception of publications or objects being obviously communistic propaganda.

Unless the hon. the Minister accepts this amendment, all his assurances about political censorship fall away. In any case, the Minister cannot expect us to accept legislation on the basis of his personal intentions. A Minister is not there for ever. Supposing the present Minister of Posts and Telegraphs becomes Minister of the Interior to-morrow. That is perhaps a wild thought, but the unexpected can happen. He is continually saying that the English language Press and the politics advocated by that Press is “corrupt” and must be “broken ”.

Of course.

Supposing such a man becomes Minister of the Interior and he has to get control over the Control Board, which in terms of the law he can appoint as he likes I Do you think for a moment he will not make a political body of that Control Board? Do you think he will not use paragraphs (d) and (e) to achieve his object and to apply political censorship? He has the sole right to appoint the Control Board in any way he wants to.

*Mr. SADIE: Which newspapers fall under the Control Board?

I am not dealing with newspapers as such now. I am just giving an indication of the Minister's political outlook, which is shared by hon. members opposite. Therefore this amendment is being moved as a test of the bona fides of the Government. We must read paragraphs (d) and (e) against the background of what we experience in this country every day. We have a Government which openly states that politics which clash with its racial policy are detrimental to the general welfare. We experience it in Parliament daily that if one criticizes the Government, they say one is criticizing South Africa, and that it is detrimental to the welfare of South Africa. Therefore there can be no doubt at all in our minds how the Government itself will interpret paragraphs (d) and (e), why they want to have them in the Bill, and what they will do with a Control Board which is completely under their thumb. Even the present Minister of the Interior admitted during the course of the debate that he wanted the scope to be wide because—these are his words from Hansard— “foreign things are introduced, strange relations, for example the relations between White and non-White, which are very deleterious ”. Is he not aiming at having political censorship? What else do these words of the Minister of the Interior mean than that he wants the power to take action in regard to standpoints which conflict with the racial policy of the Government? And why did the hon. the Minister refuse to give us a reply when we asked for assurances that he would not appoint party politicians on the Board? [Time limit.]

I regret that I cannot accept the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson), because this amendment casts a reflection on the impartiality of our courts.

Oh!

Yes, hon. members may groan, but that is the inference to be drawn from this amendment, that our courts cannot perform their elementary duty of giving judgment impartially. Here limitations must now be applied to them and the courts must be bound and their course of action must be prescribed. I ask myself whether the hon. member really seriously thinks that our courts would ban a book because such a book criticized the Nationalist Government. Is the hon. member really so naive as to think that our courts would do something like that?

The board will do it.

The impression made on my mind by this amendment when I read it in the Order Paper this morning was this: The hon. member, during the second-reading debate and thereafter, did everything possible to create the impression and to make the country believe that this Bill was one which envisaged political censorship. That attempt of his fell flat completely.

It still remains true.

It is understandable that it fell flat because it is nonsensical to allege that this Bill established political censorship. If the hon. member is really so concerned with accusing the Government of political censorship, why did he not do so in past years, because after all we have had political censorship in this country for the past 31 years. For the past 31 years it has been the political head of the Department of the Interior, the Minister, who was the final arbiter in such matters. As the law stands now, the Minister is the final judge to decide whether or not a book should be banned, and there is no appeal against his decision to any court in the country. That is political censorship, if the hon. member feels like using that word. But in the past that hon. member did not make this accusation. He waited for the introduction of this Bill before hanging this label round the neck of South Africa on totally false grounds and with but a single object—and I cannot get away from it—namely to besmirch the good name of South Africa.

Are you South African? *

We can understand that coming from that hon. member. But if the hon. member, who pays so much lip-service to the good name of South Africa, is serious, then he should not abuse an opportunity like this to make a false impression on the world to the detriment of South Africa’s good name. The fact is that the censorship law we have at the moment, the Customs Act, provides for a right of appeal to the Minister only. In the present Act it is in fact stated that the Minister will ask for the opinion of the Censorship Board, but he need not accept it. Where it is now my duty to apply those provisions, it happens from time to time that I differ from the opinion of the Censorship Board, and I gave a different decision, and there can be no further appeal. If one wants to talk about political censorship, then that is political censorship. But now we want to do away with the subjective judgment—which may be called political censorship—and we want to deprive the Minister of that power. In future the Minister will no longer have the power to give a decision in such a case. We say that in future the board will in the first place express its opinion. Now the hon. member wants to discredit the members of the board even before their names have been announced. It is evidently within his democratic rights. He thinks that he has the right to besmirch them even before they are appointed. But where he is unfair and wrong is by dragging in the position of the courts in this regard. Because in future the position will be that if the Control Board has expressed an opinion and has disapproved of a book, the objector can appeal to the courts against that decision, and the court will institute a proper inquiry, as prescribed; it will investigate all aspects, as our courts usually do, and then the court will give judgment.

In terms of the law.

Of course. If the Censorship Board now disapproves of a book on the grounds of (d) and (e) (which referred to matters detrimental to the relations between the various sections of the population of the Republic) because it believes that that book is harmful to good relations, surely the author or the complainant has the right to go to court and argue his case there, and then the court must decide whether it is harmful, and eventually it is the court’s opinion, an objective opinion—not a subjective opinion, as it is at the moment where the decision rests with the Minister—which will be decisive.

This Bill as it reads now is not only much more satisfactory, but it now provides that the court will in future lay down an objective norm, and I really think that the way in which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout puts the matter in his amendment boils down to an attempt to bring our courts into discredit, and the hon. member ought to withdraw this amendment, not for the sake of the members of the board but for the sake of the good repute of our courts.

Mrs. SUZMAN: I am glad the hon. Deputy Minister has spoken about this, because he has himself provided very good reasons why this amendment should be accepted. We have had experience of this type of Censorship Board acting in respect of imported books in the past, as the hon. the Minister himself has pointed out, and the only appeal was to the Minister and the Minister simply could accept or reject the board’s findings.

That is the position to-day.

Yes, that is the position until this Bill becomes law, but we have had experience and therefore we are very nervous at seeing this kind of censorship extended to local books as well. Because if one looks at the list of books which have in fact been arbitrarily banned over the last 20 years, one will find something like 4,000 or 5,000 titles on that banned list and there are scores and scores of titles among that list which are purely of a political nature. Therefore we know that there has already been political censorship in this country. There are books by political writers of whom no doubt the hon. Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Vereeniging do not approve. It depends upon the yard-stick that one is using. We say that we wish to read books of a political nature even if they are critical of the Government, even if they advance political theories with which we do not agree. But I wish to be able to read these things.

May I ask the hon. member to name one single book which has been banned because that book only criticized this Government? One book?

Sure I will. There is a book here called “Darkening Shadow over Africa” by Bazil Davidson; there is another one called “The Roots of Prejudice there is a book called “Passive Resistance in South Africa ”.

Only because they were critical of the Government?

The point is not whether they are only critical of South Africa.

Have you read them?

I have read two of them, actually, and they are absolutely harmless. In fact, one is a very good study, and anybody who is interested in political movements in this country should read it. Apparently if any part of a book is objectionable, it is banned, whereas for a large part it is simply a factual accent of political passive resistance in South Africa. I can name many other books, because among these 4,000 there are literally hundreds which are purely political books which have already been banned. Now we are told that we are in a lucky position because that position will disappear and instead of simply an arbitrary ban by the Censorship Board of an imported book where the appeal is to the Minister only, we are now going to have an independent board, and there can be an appeal to the courts of law against their decision. We are told that we should be duly grateful. But first of all, as I read this Bill, and I am sure the hon. Deputy Minister must agree with this, once the board has gazetted a book as being offensive, be it an imported book or a local book, then if an appeal is taken to the ordinary courts, the court may not pronounce on whether or not the board has made the right decision, but simply on whether the book has been distributed, or sold, or exhibited. It is very clear under this clause indeed that it is only a writer, an author, a printer of a book who may actually appeal, and then after a prosecution has been brought, against the undesirability of the particular object.

The hon. member should read

Clause 1 (1) (iv), the definition of “imposter”.

I will read Clause 5 (1) (b) (ii) to the hon. the Minister. It says “in terms of the decision of the board, a statement of the board ”. If it has been found undesirable in terms of a statement by the board. That does not protect the publisher, the distributor, the exhibitor. He can only appeal on the ground of not having distributed or published the book. He cannot appeal on the intrinsic decision as to whether or not the object is undesirable. That I am absolutely certain of, because I have gone into this with great care with legal experts, and I know that that is so. There is an appeal to the Supreme Court, but that is more a court of review than a court which is able again to examine a case on its intrinsic merits. So we are not granted this extension of appeal as far as the publishing, distributing and exhibiting of objects are concerned which by a statement of the board have been gazetted to be undesirable.

The importer is regarded as a publisher.

The hon. Minister has missed the whole tenor of my argument. There is no distinction I am making now between importers and locally produced books. All fall now under the Board of Censors. The distinction that I am making, Sir, is between the person who writes the book, the author of the book, and the person who publishes, distributes and exhibits that book. And in the case of the person who writes the book, there is an appeal after prosecution, on the actual intrinsic declaration of desirability, but as far as the publisher, exhibitor or distributor is concerned, there is only an appeal as to the factual position as to whether that person has distributed, published or exhibited the book. Therefore this appeal to the courts is virtually meaningless in this case. The court can make no decision as to whether the undesirability decision should be upheld or not. The court can only decide on whether or not the object has actually been distributed. Therefore I say in the light of our past experience, with blanket censorship on imported books, we must believe that the same form of censorship, the same narrow-minded objection to other people’s political thinking will be in fact also extended to locally produced books without any of the saving grace of the appeal to the courts on the intrinsic desirability or otherwise of the object.

I think the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) should rather confine herself to economics and leave the law severely alone, because whenever she gives a legal opinion it is wrong. The hon. member has not the ability to draw the necessary distinctions. It is quite ’ clearly stated in Clause 14 that anyone who is aggrieved by a decision of the board can appeal to the Supreme Court in terms of Clause 8 (1). That is, any person can do so and if the hon. member looks at the clause she will see that the board is empowered to give judgment at the request of any person—i.e. the author, the importer, the publisher or any other person. The board is empowered to investigate any publication or object at the request of any person who pays the prescribed fee. Therefore any person can make that request, and any such person who receives a decision from the board and feels aggrieved has the right to go to court and to take the matter right to the appeal court. How can the hon. member now say that an author in this country does not have the right to do so? If it is true that any person can direct that request to the Censorship Board and receive a decision as to whether it is an undesirable publication or not, and if any person can appeal against the decision of the board, what more does the hon. member want? The hon. member maintains that there are exceptions. I quite agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister that this amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout is nothing else but an interpellation of the courts; he wants to discredit the courts in advance.

Then what about the rest of the Bill?

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is a great upholder of principles. It is a pity he did not talk about that to-day. Let me put a question to him: It is stated in Clause 5 that an undesirable publication will be one detrimental to the safety of the state, the general welfare or good order. May I ask the hon. member whether he wants the right to endanger the safety of the state? Is that what he wants? Does he want to advocate that he should have the right to have a revolution? Let me hear him say so.

Ridiculous!

Does the hon. member for Bezuidenhout want the right to disturb the peace when he talks politics without being punished? Does he want the right to instigate a riot when he wants his wonderful principles to triumph in order to get a seat at any price? That is the reason why the hon. member wants this clause. He wants to have carte blanche to disturb the country, and he wants to do it orally as well as in writing, and even if the board decides that his writings are undesirable, he does not want an independent body to give an independent judgment. He is afraid to appeal, because he may lose his case there, as he did before the board. It is quite clear that he has no confidence in the court and therefore he wants to allow the court no jurisdiction. That is the trend of thought of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, and that is his great principle, namely: Freedom for myself to do what I like, particularly if I can break the National Party and the Government, because they are no use. Mr. Chairman, do you know what it is? He is in the same position as the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan). He must always throw blame on us, because he has to convince himself every morning that when he deserted this side of the House he left a bad lot of people, and that is the reason for this amendment. It is not that he is trying to improve the laws of this land; he is only busy going through his daily psychological struggle.

*Mr. DURRANT: What about Abraham and Blaar?

I want to come back again to the hon. member for Houghton. I shall be very glad if she will do me the favour of telling me how she can possibly read Clause 14 to mean that there is a limitation placed on people who feel aggrieved by the decision of the board. Supposing she feels aggrieved, there is no reason why she cannot submit a. similar work to the board for a decision. The-hoard will say that they have taken a decision, and they may refer her to some document, and say, “There it is”. Then she is aggrieved at the decision of the board which referred her to it, and then she goes to court, right up to the appeal court. What is there in this clause which prevents her? What is there in the clause to prevent an author from doing so? In terms of the definition, the importer is put on the same footing as the publisher, and the author himself falls under “any person”, and this provision applies to all these people.

This whole amendment and all this discussion is for one reason only, to tell the outside world that the National Party and this Government are trying to introduce political censorship in a disguised form, and that as. the guardian of good morals the Government is really doing nothing but masquerading as the guardian of good morals, whilst in fact it is really introducing political censorship. They are trying to ascribe dishonest motives to us. Such actions are simply dishonest.

The speaker who has just sat down continued to follow the pattern of always interpreting anything said by this side of the House as only for overseas consumption. In fact no criticism to-day can be borne by the other side unless the other side of the House says that it is for overseas consumption. The reasoning of the hon. member with regard to the appeal to the courts is also groundless, because if he refers to Clause 6 of the Bill he will find certain guidance for the courts in connection with any legal proceedings under this Act. There are three or four sections, which make provision as to how a court should allow its mind to be guided when it is dealing with the interpretation of certain allegations contained in the relevant clauses, such as the words “indecent” or " obscene”, or “offensive to public morals”, and in Clause 6 too, for instance, it says that the court shall have no regard to the intention of the person by whom that matter was printed, published, etc. To say that this clause is an interference with the prerogative of the court is in my view a very foolish argument indeed. It is a foolish argument.

Dr. COERTZE: It is a foolish amendment.

It is a foolish argument. I wish to move the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Orange Grove—

This particular portion of Clause 5 deals with certain exemptions enabling certain printed matter to fall outside the provisions of this clause. This clause, as has already been more than amply illustrated, is a very wide one indeed, far too wide to put into the hands of any Government, let alone the present one. Therefore when we deal with any exemptions the Minister should appreciate the importance of making those exemptions as wide and as comprehensive as possible. For instance, in this clause where it deals with printed matter of a professional or scientific nature for use in any particular profession or branch of art, literature or science, my suggestion to the Minister is that the words “art, literature and science” are m a sense limited and it might perhaps be well to follow a similar section in the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 in the United Kingdom, where in Section 4 very similar wording reads as follows—

In other words, you will be able then to include any article, eg. on law, medicine, economics, philosophy, education, history, sociology, psychology, music or drama or any of the other categories of learning. My appeal to the Deputy Minister is that here he has an opportunity of illustrating that sincerity which he says the Government possesses in dealing with the good name and morals of our country. The purpose of the amendment is not to preclude the printing or publication of any matter in the field of knowledge which it is necessary to disseminate throughout our schools and universities. I feel that the Minister can and should accept an amendment of this nature. It is in accordance with the legislation in other countries. It enables all objections to be met in this particular field, and I may give him another example of where we have large libraries in the country with special departments for scientific books and other types of literature. We have, e.g. the Departments of Africana throughout the country which contain many fields of learning. The word “learning” certainly gives the Government the opportunity of proving that it has no desire to limit the true educational field of publications in this country. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on that.

Before replying to the present and the previous members for Bezuidenhout, I just want to say something in regard to what was said by the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) in connection with the amendment of the present member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson). If the hon. member for Houghton were correct in saying that there is no appeal against the decision of the board that a publication should not be allowed because it is harmful to the safety of the state or to the general welfare or to good order or because it is detrimental to the good: relations between any sections of the population of the Republic, we would have reached a very serious point in this debate and I would have said that the amendment moved should have received serious consideration in spite of the mover thereof. But the hon. member for Houghton is in fact wrong. If she has sound authority for the statement she made here, she should immediately quote it, because it is of the greatest importance. My contention is that Clause 14 clearly provides for appeal against any decision given in terms of Clause 8 (1) (a), i.e. if a work has been considered and disapproved of at the request of anyone, then anyone who feels aggrieved at the decision of the board may appeal—not only the complainant who submitted the matter or the author concerned, but even an outsider can go to the appeal court. I am arguing from that point onwards. If the hon. member can convince me that my view is wrong we can discuss it further, but I have not the least doubt that it is correct. If it is incorrect that there is an appeal, I want to associate myself with what was said by the hon. the Deputy Minister. The position in practice will be this. The board considers a South African publication and decides that it should be banned, or be declared to be undesirable, because it is harmful to the relations between any sections of the population. The moment the board has taken this decision either the author, the publisher or any interested party can go to court and in terms of Clause 14 ask. for that decision to be reviewed; and if the court then finds that this publication or object is harmful to good relations between the sections of the population, it is the will of Parliament that that object should be banned. Of what use is it for the court at that stage to consider these additional matters contained in the hon. member's amendment that none of the provisions can be interpreted as prohibiting a publication for political reasons? In any case, these are factors which, as the law stands now, do not enter into the matter. This is a superfluous amendment. As the law stands now, there is not the remotest possibility of the court taking into consideration any of the factors which the hon. member’s amendment wants to prescribe to the court as something which it should take into consideration. If one produces that type of legislation, one will reach the situation where one has an Act with clear provisions, and then one comes to the negative provisions. One says one has now described what the will of Parliament is, but in addition one still wants to prescribe to the court what it may not do; the court should not allow itself to be influenced by a pretty witness, or by this or that. That would land us in administrative madness.

Then in regard to the ex-member for Bezuidenhout, who moved the amendment of the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan): He wants to insert the apparently innocuous word “learning” after the word “science”, to allow any publication of a technical, scientific or professional nature. Now, what is “learning”? Surely learning covers the knowledge of all human activities. In other words, if one inserts the word “learning”, one renders these provisions so vague that everything will be covered by the exceptions, and that is undoubtedly what the hon. member for Orange Grove envisages, but it is precisely what this side of the House does not want. We envisage a law the provisos to which will not be so wide as to negative the whole Act and to destroy its effect. Are the exceptions already made not wide enough yet? It refers to any material in a technical publication for the benefit of a particular profession. That is very wide already. Then it refers to branches of art or literature. It covers the recognized humanistic branches of learning, and that is already very wide. If one therefore goes further it will become too wide.

I want to conclude by referring to the warning issued by the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) last night in supporting the United Party’s general amendment to delete (b), (c), (d) and (e). He particularly referred to (c) and that it will not be possible to ridicule any section of the population. I agree with him that this is a national fault we have, that we Afrikaners find it rather difficult to laugh at ourselves, and I think it should be conveyed to the Board of Control that they should interpret this provision very liberally. But I want to tell hon. members where this provision comes from. It comes from the Film Censorship Act which contained the provision that no scenes should be allowed which tend to ridicule or belittle any section of the public. That was discussed in the Select Committee and it was included in this Bill because we felt, in the light of certain evidence, inter alia that of the Jewish Board of Deputies, that one should not leave out something contained in preceding legislation when framing a broader definition of what may be malicious. I advance this argument in defence of that provision. For 30 years it worked well in regard to the censorship of films. I think the first film which to some extent pokes fun at the population, “Lord Oom Piet”, was approved in terms of the existing Film Censorship Act, and therefore we at least have a precedent that this provision does not mean that scenes intended to raise a smile ought to be prohibited.

I further want to point out that even this provision is of course subject to an appeal to the court. If a publication is prohibited on the grounds that it ridicules or belittles a section of the population, then in terms of Clause 14 there is the right of appeal to the court, which will decide whether that scene or publication ridicules or belittles a section of the population. I have full confidence that the courts will find that if it ridicules or belittles a section of the population, the prohibition is justified. This really gives the reply to the whole of the amendment of the United Party that everything from (b) to (e) should be deleted. If all these sub-sections separately are made subject to an appeal there can be no harm in it, but we must at least give the board an indication of the types of indecency we have in mind, and in terms of (a) we are dealing with ordinary moral indecency, and under (b) with blasphemy, and under (c) with ridiculing sections of the population, and under (d) with the relations between the various sections of the population, and under (e) with the safety of the state. [Time limit.]

I would like to return to the courteous reply the hon. the Deputy Minister gave me last night in regard to the amendment to delete Clause 5 (1) (c), the provision which empowers the board to prohibit the importation of any publication with a soft cover at a price not exceeding 50c. When I addressed the Minister I rather gathered the impression that he was working under the instructions of the Minister of the Interior not to accept any amendments, and I accept the assurance from the Deputy Minister that if convinced he can accept any reasonable amendment. It became clear to me also from the reply of the Deputy Minister that he had made a study of the measure and of the evidence. The Minister gave as his main reason for rejecting the amendment the evidence given by Mr. Hattingh before the Select Committee, the difficulties that the Customs encountered in attempting to combat the evil of imported pornographic and undesirable literature. Let me say to the Deputy Minister that I accept all that evidence, but I want to ask the Deputy Minister whether he accepts all the evidence given before the Select Committee? I want to put a second question to him. Does he accept that embodied in this clause is the principle of pre-censorship? Is it his wish to see in a Bill of this nature the principle of pre-censorship applied, in other words, that nothing reaches the public before it is approved by the board?

It is not correct to say that nothing reaches the public unless previously approved of. Only those who want to submit their copies to the board will get such a decision.

I am not dealing with that. I am dealing with the aspect that nothing may be imported without a permit from the board. Does that include the principle of pre-censorship, or does it not?

If that is the way you prefer to describe it, it may be so.

I am asking the Minister. It is not what I say. If the Deputy Minister has convictions about this Bill, surely he must answer direct questions. Does this provision include the provision of pre-censorship? Or let me rather put it this way, to make it easier for the Minister: Does he accept the principle of pre-censorship in regard to reading matter?

I accept the principle of effective control.

In other words, pre censorship.

If you like to call it that you may do so.

Very well, the Minister accepts the principle, and that is our fundamental objection to this Bill, and it is the fundamental objection of the whole wide world, and it was the objection of the hon. the Minister of the Interior when he withdrew the 1960 Bill. The statement made by the Minister at that time when the Bill was withdrawn was that they do not wish to accept the principle of pre-censorship as embodied in Clause 4 of the 1960 Bill. If the Minister and the Government accept that situation, why not accept the evidence of Mr. Hattingh? Because Mr. Hattingh made it perfectly clear that the application of this provision where imported publications are controlled by a system of permits was the principle of pre-censorship. It stands on page 22, paragraph 136, of the Select Committee Report. He was asked the direct question: Do you mean control by a form of pre-censorship? And his reply was, “Unequivocally, yes.” This has been denied by the Minister all throughout these discussions. He said there was no pre-censorship; it does not exist.

It is a question of effective control.

If it is effective control, why does the Minister want to have effective control in regard to 90 per cent of the reading matter imported in the English language, but he wants no control of all the Afrikaans matter printed in the country?

If the Afrikaans matter came from abroad, it would be subject to control also.

So if it comes from abroad it is unacceptable, but if it is printed here it is acceptable! But anything coming from abroad in English is unacceptable, but stuff produced in South Africa in English is acceptable. The more the Minister argues, the more I am convinced by the argument of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. The position in the Bill is virtually ridiculous, and one is entitled to have the deepest suspicions of the motives of the Government. It must be blatantly obvious by this time that it is nothing but a measure to control the thought processes and the reading of the bulk of the population, because why else make this distinction? Why make reading matter imported from abroad subject to a permit, while reading matter written and published in South Africa is free?

That is not so, and you know it.

That hon. member has woken up at last. Perhaps that hon. member now wants a permit for reading matter imported from Germany also. I am trying to argue with the Deputy Minister in a logical manner. I know he has a mind of his own and I am putting the factual position before him as it is now. I believe the Deputy Minister is opposed to this provision.

Nonsense!

I know he is a man of firm principle and I ask him rather to let his conscience guide him, above his party loyalty. I once heard this Minister say that he would fight for the right of a man to say and think what he likes, even if he disagreed with him. I do not want to remind him of the occasion, because we fought elections together and I heard him say that he would fight to his last drop of blood for the right of a man to think and say what he likes.

And who won that election?

Those were his convictions then. Now for the sake of his political position the hon. member is allowing his conscience and his love of democracy and of all the freedoms to be subjected to his political party. I ask the Deputy Minister to argue on the basis of the facts before us. Will he tell us he wants 90 per cent of the reading matter of the country which is imported to be subjected to a permit, and why all that is published in the country, in English or in Afrikaans, can be published without a permit?

Because of this trash that is imported.

The Deputy Minister must not come with this argument that 90 per cent of the pornographic material that has been banned was in soft covers. The hon. member for Vereeniging has admitted that the percentage of undesirable material imported over a period of many years forms a very insignificant part of the entire bulk of literature imported. Do not let us delude ourselves with that figure of 90 per cent. Ninety per cent of what is undesirable is in paperback form, but it is not 90 per cent of paperbacks that is undesirable. The hon. member for Vereeniging has admitted that the undesirable material imported is an insignificant percentage of the mass of material imported.

I did not say insignificant; I said small. But a small percentage of such a large mass can still be too much.

I accept that, but then there is also the other aspect. It is only imported by a limited number of importers, and under all the 14 statutes on the Statute Book I do not know of any case where an importer or distributor or publisher has been prosecuted in regard to the material imported. There is no case on record, as far as I know, yet we are faced by measures of an extreme nature. I say that the public of South Africa will be entitled to put the worst possible construction on this position. [Interjections.] It is not a question only of pornographic material. What is designed here, I have no doubt, is nothing more than a measure of control of the political thinking of the people of this country.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) says that I have just awakened. That is not the case. I have been awake all the time, but I have found it extremely difficult not to fall asleep. I have always known what the contents of this Bill are, but I have never been able to understand what all the nonsense that we have heard from the other side has to do with it. Mr. Chairman, I think the time has come for us to pull the mask off the face of the United Party in connection with this matter, and I want to start with the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson). The hon. the Deputy Minister has correctly stated in reply to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout that that hon. member cast a reflection this afternoon on the impartiality of our courts. And by whom was that reflection cast? By the hon. member for Bezuidenhout who has been sliding through the political parties of South Africa like quicksilver. As recently as 1948, in the course of the by-election campaign at Gobabis, the hon. member who put forward such a stirring plea here for democratic human rights …

What has that to do with the Bill? *

I shall tell you what I am talking about. I use Clause 5 as the peg on which to hang my hat, and for the purpose of my argument I take sub-clauses (b), (c), (d) and (e). At that time he wanted all the Germans who had been interned without a court trial to be deported.

*Mr. J. DU P. BASSON: That is untrue.

If the hon. member says that it is untrue, then I dare not call him a public liar here because you, Mr. Chairman, would call me to order, but I say to him now that I will say it in his presence at Gobabis where I shall not be able to shelter behind parliamentary privilege, and then he can run to his courts of law.

You are lying.

On a point of order, is the hon. member for Bezuidenhout entitled to say that the hon. member is lying?

Order! Did the hon. member for Bezuidenhout say that?

Yes, but I was entitled to say it in view of what the hon. member said.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it.

On a point of order, is the hon. member entitled to say that he does not want to call the hon. member for Bezuidenhout a public liar? Is the insinuation not that he is calling him a public liar?

I said that I could not call him a public liar here because you, Mr. Chairman, would call me to order, but that I would do so in Gobabis in his presence where he would then be entitled to redress in the courts of law.

Order! That is still an indication as to what the hon. member means. I think the hon. member should withdraw it.

No, Mr. Chairman, I chose my words very carefully. I said that if I were to say …

The hon. member is not allowed to say it.

Do you want me to withdraw it?

Yes.

Then I withdraw it. But that will not prevent me from pulling the mask off the faces of Opposition members to-day. Clause 5 (2) reads—

I want to ask the Opposition why they have changed their attitude so radically over a period of 25 years? Twenty-five years ago they were a powerful party in this House. In 1938 the United Party, with the help of the then Labour Party, commanded a full two-thirds majority in this House and at that time the hon. member who sits next to me was still a United Party member. He will confirm what I say here. Those members of the United Party then went along and obtained a two-thirds majority behind the back of the then Cabinet of General Hertzog in order to place on the Statute Book of South Africa these very things which they are now talking against and against which they are going to vote. I shall tell you, Sir, why they did so. At that time there was a great deal of unrest in this country; there were Grey Shirts, there were Black Shirts, there was the Anti-Asiatic Encroachment League in Natal; there were similar organizations in the Transvaal and there was a section of the White community that wanted protection against all those things which held them up to ridicule and which disturbed race relationships in this country. They could not get it from the Cabinet of General Hertzog’s Government, so they had to introduce a Bill themselves and at that time they wanted the very same things against which they are speaking now and against which they are going to vote, and the reason is this: At that time— and that is still the position to-day—the law on defamation was that one can only defame a person, not a community or a race. The hon. member who sits over here will be able to tell you the whole history. They held a Round Robin; they then reported to the Jewish Board of Deputies, because they were behind this whole thing. I had the minutes of the meeting of the Jewish Board of Deputies in my own hands. There they boasted that they were in control of a full two-thirds majority of this House which would enable them to place on the Statute Book the very things against which they are now speaking and against which they are going to vote. Sir, the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) has apologized for not being able to be present here this afternoon but if he had been Here he too would have been able to testify to this. When they got this, they sent out booklets to all the members of the United Party; they were not sent out by the party; they were sent out by the Jewish Board of Deputies, and there they were told what benefits they could expect for the general election in 1938—motor-cars, fuel, organizers, plenty of money—and when the hon. member for Christiana would not accept this they first of all sent a private individual to him to make this offer to him, and after the election they repeated this offer to him, I say that I want to pull the mask off the faces of hon. members of the Opposition who have been speaking for so many monotonous days against this Bill, and who have been objecting to these clauses for so many hours. It is these same hon. members who suffered that humiliation 25 years ago at the hands of the Jewish Board of Deputies in order to be able to achieve the very same purpose which the Government seeks to achieve to-day. I am going to mention to you the names of other witnesses who signed that document; I am going to read out their names. The hon. member next to me did not receive an offer—they knew that he was too honest—and the hon. member for Christiana rejected their offer.

Order! What has that to do with the clause?

I say that I want to pull the mask off their faces. They talk against this clause; they talk against every one of these clauses and yet they suffered all those humiliations in order to make legislative provision for the very thing against which the Government now seeks to legislate.

The hon. member for Karas (Mr. von Moltke) would have you believe, Sir, that this is a masked ball. Throughout his speech he was determined to unmask somebody in order to reveal something. I am sorry that he did not really get to that point where he could unmask somebody …

Did you hear what I said?

I heard what the hon. member said. Sir, in view of the fact that his opening remarks indicated that he was desperately keen to rush off to Gobabis, I can only say that I am in favour of it!

I would like to come back to this clause. This clause has revealed all over again the fact that in any attack that we have made on this Bill from this side of the House the first defence of the Government party has been, “We give you the right of appeal to the courts,” “you” being the publisher, the author or anybody who may feel aggrieved. This afternoon, for example, three speakers in a row on that side of the House threw up this rampart very hurriedly and said, “Here you have the defence, the perfect defence, against any sort of injustice; you have the right to appeal to the courts.” The first point, of course, is that the appeal to the courts is a right, and not a concession or a gift, from anybody in this House, and surely the hon. the Deputy Minister who has been so flamboyantly praised, if I may say so, by my colleague, the hon. member for Turffontein, will be the first to concede that that is a right, and not a gift.

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Sir, the hon. member must ask me the question outside the House. I will then give a swift answer. The point I want to make is this. The Deputy Minister, although he only came into the debate yesterday, has similarly raised this defence, supported to-day by the hon. member for Kempton Park (Mr. F. S. Steyn), and, in fact, the hon. member for Kempton Park went out of his way to say that these amendments—for example, the one moved by the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) and the one moved by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson)—simply disregarded the fact that there was this appeal to the courts. He cited the clauses that prove his point of view, and was very happy to have been able to prove that he was right. Sir, the extraordinary thing is that in satisfying himself as the hon. member for Kempton Park did. that there was this appeal to the courts, that the court had an unfettered discretion and that therefore everybody, particularly the members of the Opposition. should be happy, he sedulously disregarded the fact that in certain other respects the court had no such thing as an unfettered discretion—and. Sir. he is the lawyer, not I. He knows that it has no unfettered discretion. Why therefore, even in the name of political advantage, certainly not in the name of political honesty—seek to argue under Clause 5 that our amendment on this side of the House will, as he put it, reduce this matter to “’n administratiewe waansin”, to administrative nonsense, and at the same time ignore the fact that in the very next clause, Clause 6, there is ample evidence of the fact that there is no such thing as an unfettered discretion— and there is no such thing as this appeal to the court being the complete answer to the plea from this side of the House. Because he has chosen to ignore the fact that Clause 6 (2) says—

Clearly he has not given the courts the unfettered discretion that he tries to tell the Committee he or his party is giving it in terms of Clause 5. I do think in fairness to a committee which is called upon to make some sort of decision in the light of facts, in the light of reason and of logic, that hon. member for Kempton Park as well as the Deputy Minister and any other speaker on that side, should refer to the “con” as well as to the “pro ”— otherwise their whole argument becomes less than honest. I do not know what the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) has just said, but no doubt he will rise after me in order to prove that black is white and that white is black, etc. What I want to say is this —on the question of prohibiting of the importation into the country of books of an f.o.b. value of 50c, which is very important and with which I would like to deal at another time, and in regard to the banning of books under this Clause 5 and particularly in regard to the banning of books which are of a political nature, hon. members on that side of the House should not seek to argue that “it can’t happen here that they will always ensure that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be applied in an essentially reasonable and honest way. They cannot guarantee that; there is no entrenchment of any sort here. It is no answer to argue, as was argued the other day, that we are not in the Middle Ages. At that time I said that we were heading into the Middle Ages, and I say it again this afternoon, but to say that is no answer, either. In the Middle Ages, the authorities who were dissatisfied with a book or who wanted to eliminate it from the society which they controlled would cause that book to be banned. to-day we are supposed to be more civilized and advanced; we do not burn them, we ban them, but the effect is exactly the same whether you burn or ban a book; you still eliminate it, and so in this process of banning we are in effect, as far as certain types of books and literature are concerned, going back to the Middle Ages without a shadow of doubt.

Your mentality belongs to the Middle Ages.

At least in that case I have had the opportunity of acquiring a little wisdom, which is more than I can say for the hon. member for Vereeniging. Sir, to give you an example of how this clause would be better, if amended in terms of the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, I want to refer to something which should be within the memory of members of this House who have been members within the last 10 or 12 years. In the United States, which certain hon. members and particularly the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) have cited as an example in a certain context, there was such a similar move by a certain Senator Joseph R. McCarthy which gave the name “McCarthyism” to a type of thinking. Sir, are we not heading for “de Klerkism ”? I want to show you, Sir, how that analogy can well be true.

We are listening to Gorshelism.

That would be far better than McCarthyism or de Klerkism, but you will never do what I say of course. This Senator McCarthy who became a power in the land because he said that we must fight Communism— “we” meaning the American people and the American Government, apparently was able to influence enough people in and out of the Legislature to set up a committee like the Committee on Un-American Activities. I am not going into the history of that matter, but the simple fact is that it gained such momentum that it became a menace to what is called the American way of life, just as this era of the Controlled Man which the hon. the Minister is trying to usher into this country will become a menace to what we call the South African way of life. The position became very bad in the United States, to such an extent that there was a complete revulsion of feeling, and we know what happened to Senator McCarthy and his Committee on UnAmerican activities and all the rest of it. It was at that time that it was established that the analogy which I have sought to draw— that in the Middle Ages they used to burn the books that they did not like, and that to-day we ban the books that we do not like, is a true one. [Time limit.]

We have been busy for quite some time with this Bill which is designed to prohibit undesirable publications. I have listened to the hon. member who has just spoken; he talks about the Middle Ages but he does not realize that we are living in different times to-day. We are living in a period of changing circumstances, a period in which we have to adapt ourselves. In the economic sphere we readily adapt ourselves to the times in which we are living, but when there are signs of moral deterioration, then the Opposition come along and put forward the plea that we must not make the necessary adjustment by introducing legislation to curb and to prohibit those things. Clause 5 with which we are dealing here is the crux of this measure. We know that so far the Opposition have voted against all the clauses. Are we to infer from that that the United Party would like to read this undesirable, indecent, obscene and filthy reading matter; that they would like the population of South Africa to read it? That is the only inference that one can draw from the fact that they are opposing this measure. We. on the contrary, want to take steps to prohibit this undesirable reading matter in our country and that is why we come forward with this legislation.

Yesterday the hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) took strong exception to the fact that the hon. member for Boks-burg had put forward a strong plea for this legislation. Because the hon. member felt strongly about this legislation, the hon. member for Germiston (District) asked why this Government had not come forward with this legislation 14 years ago already. The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) also associated herself with that and asked how we had managed so far without a measure of this kind. The point I want to make is that times have changed. The sales of this undesirable reading matter have increased in South Africa and that is why we have to make the necessary provision to be able to combat it. We have to introduce legislation to prohibit it in this country. We must adapt ourselves to the times in which we are living and try to prohibit these undesirable things. It is to be regretted that there is an increase in the sales of this indecent and obscene reading matter; it is a matter that gives us cause for concern. This undesirable reading matter mast necessarily lead to moral deterioration, and that is why it is so necessary to prohibit this undesirable reading matter. Mr. Chairman, I have read through the clauses and I have found nothing here that refers to any particular language group, but the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) alleges that racial discrimination is taking place here; that we are discriminating against the English language as such and he tries to make political capital out of it. I deplore that remark of his and his attempt to make political capital out of a Bill such as this and to stir up racialism in this way. Must we simply allow undesirable reading matter to be distributed? We most certainly cannot allow it. That is why I am pleased that we are at last taking active steps in this matter and introducing legislation to prohibit undesirable reading matter.

The hon. member for Green Point (Maj. van der Byl) has made the point here that other countries will laugh at us because we are conservative in our views. If he is afraid that people in other countries will laugh at us, that is up to him, but we have a responsibility towards the people whom we represent here. A great responsibility rests on our shoulders as legislators of this country and that is why. when we find that it is necessary to do so, it is up to us to introduce the necessary legislation; we cannot afford to say that we are afraid that other people will laugh at us. We know that our people in South Africa will not laugh at us. We know that this legislation will meet a need. We must take steps to discourage undesirable reading matter and to encourage people to write good literature. We are against a policy of laissez faire. It is up to us, when things get out of hand, to pass laws to prevent that so that there can be order in this country, as there ought to be in any society. That is why I welcome this measure and I am pleased that the Minister is carrying on with it to prohibit this undesirable reading matter.

It is significant that if hon. members opposite lack arguments, they make personal attacks. I regard that as flattering, because if a man can answer one’s case on its merits he will not resort to personalities. Personal attacks always prove that there is a lack of convincing counter arguments.

The standpoint of hon. members opposite is evidently that every book or publication will land in court. It is continually said here that the court will decide this and the court will decide that. But that will not be the practical effect of the Bill. The court will, in fact, be in the background, but of the thousands of works submitted to the Control Board it is doubtful whether even a few will be taken to court. An author receiving a royalty of R100 per annum is not going to institute a case which will cost him R 1,000! For all practical purposes the court will be a dead letter in the case of all books which earn a small royalty. Books are comparatively cheap articles and the number of court cases will be a minimum, if any. My amendment has nothing to do with the court. We must give guidance to the Control Board in regard to what is undesirable and what is not. That is our standpoint. Now the Deputy Minister and the hon. member for Standerton (Dr. Coertze) say that my amendment will restrict the courts. That is a frivolous argument. If we as a Parliament can tell the court what our legislation regards as undesirable, surely we may also tell the court what the legislation does not regard as undesirable! The principle is the same. Clause 5 (3), for instance, reads—

It is an instruction to the court: “This is not interpreted in that way ”. My amendment is similar and says that the provisions of subsection (2) cannot be interpreted in such-and-such a way. It gives guidance to the Control Board and consequently also to the court. To say that it restricts or insults the court is absolutely frivolous, and it astounds me that a man who is in the position of a Deputy Minister can advance such an argument. But even if it is true that we bind the court, I want to say that we bind the court in every Act we pass. Is the court not bound by every Act of Parliament? Is it a wrong principle to bind the court? The court is bound by every Act passed by this Parliament, and there is nothing wrong in Parliament seeking to bind the court. The Government persists in saying that there will be no question of political censorship, but it refuses equally persistently to incorporate it in the Bill for the guidance of the Control Board and of the court, and as long as the Government refuses to state a clear intention to this effect in the Bill, I have the fullest right to say that this clause opens the door wide to political censorship, and that it is a power which the Government is consciously seeking.

The hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) said she would be back in a minute; I hope she will return timeously. I think this is something which should once and for all be cleared up. The hon. member for Houghton and many other members have said that when the board publishes a decision in the Government Gazette that a book has been declared undesirable in terms of this Clause 5, the distributor of that book can be taken to court if he continues to distribute it and when he is taken to court he will not have the right to ask that the decision of the board should be treated on its merits; it must only be proved that he had continued to distribute it. She says that in such a case the Supreme Court will not have the right to question the decision of the board; the court must only decide whether the person had continued to distribute it. She says she has obtained legal opinion to substantiate her view. Her authority is Professor P. Beinart, professor in Roman Law at the University of Cape Town. I do not want to say anything personal about him; we all know him; we know where his sympathies lie and what his views are. I simply want to analyse what he has written from a legal point of view. He wrote two articles in the Cape Times of 1 February and of 2 February and in both those articles the professor suggested that an author, a printer and a publisher will indeed have the right when they are challenged before the court, to ask the court to go into the merits of the decision of the board, but in both the first and the second article he says this—

The printer and the author may ask for the merits of the case to be tested, but in his second article he says this—

I just want to say this with all the emphasis at my command that the professor stated only half the truth and you know what the old saying is about half the truth, Sir. The hon. member for Houghton and all those who echo what he says, state only half the truth. [Interjections.] His contention is that if such a person is challenged before the Supreme Court because he continued to distribute a book which has been declared, the court cannot go into the merits of the finding of the board. That is what they contend and that is why they say the distributor is not placed in the fortunate position where he can cast a doubt over the findings of the board. I say it is only half the truth. The hon. professor of Roman Law ought at least to have taken the other side of the matter into consideration as well. They disregard what is stated in Clause 14. Clause 14 (1) (c) states clearly that any person, that is the distributor, the seller, the exhibitor, also the hon. member for Houghton, may, when the board’s decision has been published in the Government Gazette, go to court and say: “We dispute that finding of the board ”. It is only half the truth to say that only when the distributor has been summonsed the only question which will be considered will be whether he did indeed distribute. That is half the truth, and a half a truth is worse than a whole untruth, as I have already said. The position is simply this that when the board has declared a book to be undesirable the distributor, the exhibitor, the artist the author and the printer, everyone of them, has the fullest right to go to the Supreme Court and to say: “We dispute that finding of the board; we think it is a wrong finding. They have the fullest right to do that. It is only when a distributor does not move and ignores the fact that the board has banned a book and that it has been published in the Government Gazette and continues to sell it that he can be brought before the court for having distributed it. But after it has been advertised that a book has been banned the distributor can go to court and test the merits of the case. I also want to say to the hon. member for Houghton, pursuant to what Professor Beinart has said, that it is only half the truth. I challenge Professor Beinart and I challenge the hon. member for Houghton and any hon. member on the Opposition side to join me in an action before an arbitration court and to prove that what I have said here is not correct and the whole truth and that what they have said is only half the truth. I challenge anyone of them and if they are men they will get up and accept it. Let the professor with all his learning and the hon. member for Houghton with all her learning come along and I challenge either of them to prove before an arbitration court that what I have just said is not the whole truth and I shall prove that what they have said is only half the truth.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) is seeking to get away from a debate in this Chamber by issuing a challange which he knows is an utterly futile process. If we cannot convince him here we will not be able to convince him elsewhere.

Do you accept my challenge?

I am going to show that the hon. member by his own voting during the course of this Committee Stage has shown quite clearly that he is not in favour of all persons, who are offended or who have their interests affected by a proclamation in terms of this Act as something which falls within its terms, having the right to question the decision of the board. When this side of the House sought to extend the right of appeal so that it would be all-embracing, this hon. member voted against it. By putting an amendment on the Order Paper which the hon. member will find among the amendments moved by me, we sought to make it quite clear that any person who was aggrieved by a decision of the board would be entitled to take that course and this hon. member voted against it.

I did not vote against it.

Sir, I gave the hon. member a chance when he was speaking. He must please take his medicine now. He must not try to shout me down. I expect the same courtesy from the hon. member which I extended to him when he was stating his case. The hon. member will find the amendment which I moved to Clause 14 on page 106 of the Order Paper. I moved—

1. (1) Subject to the provisions of Section 11, any person who is aggrieved by a decision of the board on any matter in respect of which it is empowered by this Act to make a decision, may within 30 days after the decision of the board was given, appeal against that decision by way of application on notice of motion to any provincial or local division of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

And if the hon. member looks at the voting proceedings in the Committee Stage he will find his own name as voting against that amendment. It is futile on the part of the hon. member to challenge us to arbitration over the matter. He has condemned himself. The very object we had in mind in moving that amendment was to make it perfectly clear that any of these persons would have the right to go to court. That was all we asked.

They have that right.

It is perfectly clear that they do not. One has only to read this clause to realize that there are persons who are affected who have not the right of appeal. During the debate in the Committee Stage on this clause examples were given and many more can be given of persons who would not have the right to appeal. This hon. member who is a party to withholding that right of going to the courts from persons who might be vitally interested, now asks for an arbitration outside this House. I submit that the time to test these matters is when the matter is being debated before this House; to listen to reasonable arguments which are advanced and not to try to escape from them and to limit the rights which exist. We could very easily have dealt with this matter at an earlier stage.

But I now want to come back to Clause 5. The hon. member claims that the provisions of Clause 5 can in all circumstances be dealt with before the courts. In all fairness I would like to refer him to the provisions of this clause. We have moved certain amendments to Clause 5, and those amendments are before us at the present time. It says here—

1. (a) print, publish, manufacture, make or produce any undesirable publication or object; or
2. (b) distribute, display, exhibit or sell or offer or keep for sale any publication or object if that publication or object
3. (i) has in a prosecution in respect of an offence under paragraph (a) been found to be undesirable.

Not a prosecution of “that person”, Sir, but any prosecution. These prosecutions may be before the magistrates’ court; they are not reported in the Press and they may not even be known. Or—

1. (ii) is in terms of a statement by the board under Section 8 undesirable in its opinion or is in terms of a decision by the board under Section 21 of the Customs Act, 1955, indecent, obscene or objectionable, and such statement or decision has not been set aside under Section 14 of this Act
   and the board has caused such finding, statement or decision to be made known by notice in the Gazette.

That may be so, Sir, but if the matter is not taken before the court by the person entitled to do so under Section 14 then it is perfectly clear that a mere decision by the board, even if it is manifestly wrong, falls within the provisions of Clause 5 and any person who prints or publishes it has no further right, when he may be brought before the court in terms of Clause 5, to establish that this is not obscene or objectionable or undesirable in terms of the other provisions of the Act. All that it will be necessary to prove is that there has been a statement by the board under Section 8 that it is undesirable in its opinion, and if it has not been set aside under the provisions of Section 14, then it is perfectly clear that that person will have been acting in breach of the provisions of this Act even if the decision of the board is manifestly wrong. The appeal too, can only be taken within a period of 30 days and the publicity which is given to it is publication in the Gazette. While that is obviously most desirable. clearly there are many things which are published in the Gazette, as the hon. the Minister knows, which do not come to the attention of persons who may be affected by it.

When we were discussing an amendment to another clause. I referred to the position of the importer. I pointed out that the importer had already got his gains because he had sold the whole of his consignment. It might be in the hands of another person who might find himself completely remedyless.

The hon. member for Fort Beaufort must not, when he has the opportunity of assisting this side of the House to put this Bill in a much more satisfactory shape, assist to vote us down and then ask us to take part in an arbitration outside this House. Let the hon. member rather, even at this stage, seek to convince the hon. the Minister—if he cannot do it here then in Another Place—to accept some of the reasonable amendments which have been moved by this side of the House.

I merely rise to say something in brief. Firstly, I wish to refer to the amendment of the hon. member for Orange Grove (Mr. E. G. Malan) which was moved by the hon. member for Florida (Mr. Miller). It is an amendment which, as you can see, Sir, is so vague and pointless that, with all due respect, it does not deserve any consideration. I cannot accept it therefore.

Some of the Opposition speakers referred at the beginning to the nervousness which there is supposed to be in certain circles, in Opposition circles, in regard to the application of this control measure. I then thought what nervousness there must have been in years gone by. I want to say something which ought to be brought to tile notice of the committee. The number of publications which were banned during the period from 1938 to 1948 was 7,721. That was during the ten-year period under United Party régime. The number of publications which was banned in a corresponding period of ten years, that is to say from 1950 to 1960, was 6,708. In other words, fewer under Nationalist regime. If you bear in mind that there have been many more paperbacks under Nationalist regime—paperbacks have only made their appearance recently—you will probably have a greater appreciation of the sound discretion which was exercised in applying censorship over the past ten years. We should also remember that during that period there was a vast amount of Russian literature. You then ask yourself this question, Sir, that if the Opposition gets nervous so easily about such things they must have been very nervous during the period when they were in power. On the contrary I think that the record of this Government as far as the banning of books is concerned, is a credit to the sound judgment which was exercised. Where we are now introducing a new system, where it is being taken out of the hands of the Minister completely, and where it is placed in the hands of a board, a board, which in spite of what the Opposition says will consist of outstanding people, people for whom Opposition members will have the highest regard, and whom they will not dare to attack across the floor of the House as they have predicted lately, a board consisting of prominent people whose judgment will command respect, you can well imagine that under this machinery even much better judgment will be exercised in future.

I want to reply briefly to a few statements which we have had from the other side. The one came from the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant). Once again he came with his battle cry of “pre-censorship ”. You are, of course, entitled to use any term in this House to describe anything. I told the hon. member that if he chose to use that term he must do so. It is his affair; it is not our description. We regard, describe and see this measure as a measure whose only object is to exercise effective control over pornography and undesirable literature. What worries the hon. member for Turffontein is that we will in future stop the inflow of overseas literature and that that will place that literature in a disadvantageous position in relation to our local literature, namely the Afrikaans literature. But surely that is not a matter of principle; that is a question of machinery. Surely we cannot place the same machinery in operation in respect of our local products as we do in respect of those products which enter the country. It is wrong to assume from that that there is discrimination against the English literature, it is an unsound assumption and an assumption which I did not expect from him. That literature will have every opportunity of entering the country by way of application to the board. It is not a question of “pre-censorship ”. It will be allowed to enter if it is material which does not fall in the undesirable class.

I do not want to take up more time of the Committee but I just want to assure the hon. member for Germiston (District) that as far as his concern about the right of appeal is concerned, he need not have many sleepless nights.

I always sleep well.

Thank you, I know that once this Act is on the Statute Book he will sleep even better. The provisions contained in 8 (1) (a) and 14 (c) afford an opportunity to everybody who is affected, the author, the publisher, the distributor, to go to court. That right may be exercised by anybody who wants to exercise it. I conclude by making this final statement that I believe that this measure, namely this clause, will contribute greatly to create that machinery which we want to have to safeguard our country against this undesirable rubbish.

I do not see the point in the hon. the Minister quoting the figures which he did a minute ago. I think he said there were some 7,000 odd banned publications in the period 1938 to 1948 and some 6,500 in the period 1950 to 1960. A total of about 15,000 bannings were gazetted in 1956 and that list was submitted to the Customs Department. What is the Minister trying to prove? Is the Minister trying to say that there were fewer bannings under this Government over that ten-year period?

Do not the figures indicate that?

It does not indicate that. It is a well-known fact that during the war years a great deal of undesirable material was published and I think it is a credit to those in power during that period that they prevented the entry of that type of material. Surely it was a credit to them that they stopped it.

Now you want to prevent us from stopping its entry.

What is the Minister trying to prove? Because surely the hon. the Minister must realize that as the position is at the moment a Customs official can ban a publication immediately in terms of the Customs Act. But where they are in doubt about a matter what do they do? The Customs officials refer that publication to the Censor Board for its opinion and the Censor Board gives its opinion in respect of that particular publication and the Customs officials then act under the instructions of the Minister.

The extraordinary thing is this, Sir, that the Minister accepted the Bill which was referred to the Select Committee and it was only on the pressure of extreme hon. members, like the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) and others, that many additional powers are now being given to the board. That was never envisaged in the Bill which the Minister originally introduced in this House and which was referred to the Select Committee. In fact, the Bill that went to the Select Committee was welcomed in this sense that the advisory position of the Control Board existed and there was an appieal to the courts in the event of any adverse judgment. So I ask the hon. the Minister what the point of his argument is there.

The Minister also said that we need have no fear because the men who will be appointed to this Control Board will be people of high character, with excellent background and people who will exercise discretion. Well, I am going to make an honest and sincere appeal to the hon. the Minister to-day. We have all seen the story which appeared in the Sunday Times that the hon. member for Fort Beaufort was named as a possible member of that board. I am sure that I speak for every member in this House, not only for the Opposition, when I say to the Minister: For goodness sake use all your influence to prevent the appointment of this hon. gentleman to the board, because he has prejudged everything that is likely to be submitted to that control board. He has prejudged every single issue that will be submitted to that board. I make a sincere appeal to the hon. the Minister for goodness sake, in the interests of South Africa and in the interests of freedom of thought and expression, please see that this hon. member is never appointed to this control board.

Order! The hon. member cannot discuss the membership of the board; the committee is discussing Clause 5.

I was merely replying to a point made by the hon. the Minister. The hon. Minister said that this was merely a question of machinery. He said it was a matter of different machinery which would operate in the case of imported material from that which would operate in the case of internal publications. Does the hon. Minister realize—and I hope the hon. members for Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark will support me—that one of the points which concerned the Select Committee was the fact that pornographic material which was stopped at the port of entry by the Customs officials could be reprinted in South Africa and disseminated with no banning whatsoever; that there was no means of control? Now the Minister said that it was a question of machinery.

Now we have internal control; we can stop that.

Mr. DURR ANT: The Minister now makes the clear and unequivocal statement that we have internal control for the first time. I challenge the hon. the Minister to show me anywhere in this clause which we are discussing or in this Bill where there is any control. The only control that exists is control by intimidation, but there is no control anywhere in this Bill over internal publications. [Interjections.] It is no good the hon. the Deputy Minister now making interjections. I challenge the hon. the Minister now to state chapter and verse in this Bill where there is internal control along the same system as is intended in this Bill in regard to imported publications.

Clause 5 (1) (a).

The only control is control by intimidation, which we have alleged all along during the course of these discussions. The only control is that if anybody publishes or prints material which offends under these wide definitions, then he can be prosecuted and if the board expresses an opinion after publication, then the publication itself is undesirable—only then. But in the case of imported publications they are stopped even before they see the light of day because the board sits in judgment on them. That is the kernel of our objection to this provision.

I now challenge the hon. member for Fort Beaufort to give chapter and verse where it says in this Bill that an author, who writes a manuscript and submits it to the board and the board having turned it down as undesirable, has the right to go to court. It does not exist in this Bill. That is why the amendment moved by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) is so important. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Germiston (District) (Mr. Tucker) got such a fright when I issued my challenge that I would meet them in any action in regard to this matter, that he could not even read. He says that I voted against his amendment; his amend ment to Clause 14. I say that is not true; I was not here; I did not vote. [Interjections.] He said that I had proved that I did not want to give the right to any person to go to court, because I had voted against his amendment. The truth of the matter is that I did not vote;

I was not here. [Interjections.] Stop your moaning! The truth of the matter, Mr. Chairman, is that had I been present I would have voted against it and I shall give you very good reasons why I would have voted against it. I would have voted against it because it is an amendment which the hon. member did not want to or did not move in the Select Committee and secondly because it is absolutely redundant. That is also my reply to the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant). It is quite redundant because it is laid down in Clause 14 (a) (b) and (c) …

The Committee is not discussing Clause 14.

Mr. Chairman, I am merely replying to the hon. member for Germiston (District). Certain things are banned under Clause 5 and flowing from that both the hon. member for Germiston (District) and the hon. member for Houghton (Mrs. Suzman) allege that if books are banned in terms of Clause 5 the author or the distributor will not have the right of going to court to test the merits of that decision. I am merely replying to the distorted way in which the hon. member for Germiston (District) presented the position. It clearly states which people can go to court to have the merits of the case discussed. I shall read it in English; Perhaps the hon. member for Germiston (District) will understand it better—

That is word for word exactly the same as the amendment which he moved. Why should I vote for something which is redundant and which already appears in the law? The truth is simply this that hon. members realize now that in echoing Professor Beinart they are telling half truths as far as this clause is concerned, and now they dare not accept my challenge. They dare not do so because they know they have already lost.

Mr. Chairman, in view of the hour we have reached I wish to move—-

I move—

This is a very short Bill and my introductory speech will be equally short. As the House is probably aware the Government has decided to place the Indian teaching staff which falls under the Department of Education, Arts and Science at the present moment under the Department of Indian Affairs from 1 April 1963. The M. L. Sultan Technical College, Durban and its branches at Pietermaritzburg and Stanger where Indian students receive vocational training will similarly be transferred. In order to bring that about it is necessary to amend the definition of “Minister” in the Act concerned so that the State President may, by proclamation, transfer the powers, duties and function under the Act in so far as established Indian institutions are concerned, to the Minister of Indian Affairs. I may just add that this transfer will mean that these technical colleges will in all respects retain their present form of management, identity and character. The basis of the administration of these colleges will therefore not be affected by this transfer. In other words, these institutions will remain State-aided institutions. This Bill has only one object, therefore, as I have said, and that is to amend the present definition of “Minister” in order to make this transfer possible.

I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he will give us a definition of the words “soft cover ”. During the discussions on this Bill we have heard much about the word “paperbacks” which I think has an accepted meaning. But the term “soft cover” has a very much wider implication, as I see it, than “paperbacks ”. In terms of this clause nobody shall import a publication or object with a soft cover without a permit. The definition is so wide that it can include hundreds of things which are imported into the country to-day, things, which I am sure, are not intended to be caught under this Bill. Let us have a look at one or two items. A Bible with a soft cover—and many Bibles are published with soft covers—if it costs less than 50 cents will not be able to be imported without a permit. A publication by the British House of Parliament, the Blue Book, with a soft cover will not be able to be imported without a permit. No book with a soft cover will be allowed to be imported without a permit. Brochures used for advertising by hundreds of different organizations could not be imported into this country without a permit. Those are all publications with what we all understand to be soft covers. I should like to know from the hon. the Deputy Minister how far he goes in his interpretation of a soft cover. Here I have some periodicals which obviously have soft covers. Here is one which I am not sure myself whether it has a soft cover or not —it has its index on the cover. Here is one which has a picture and a little notation which is hardly news. It may be a soft cover. This one, I suppose, will be a soft cover in terms of the Bill. Where does it end? A newspaper in terms of the definition in Clause 1 of the Bill as interpreted by Clause 5 will have a soft cover. Does that apply to every newspaper that is published outside the Republic? Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that the hon. the Deputy Minister should tell us exactly what is meant by a soft-covered publication or object. Because, taking the narrowest definition of a soft cover, his Department is going to have an enormous task in dealing with the exemptions that are going to be applied for. As I read the Bill, if anyone wants to import anything which has a soft cover, a permit has to be obtained. There is no provision in the Bill whereby the Minister can, by general proclamation, say that you can import A. B, C. D. E. F or G. So each person who is importing a brochure, for example, will have to make application to import that particular item. Anybody who wants to import a little notebook or any particular type of publication which is not really meant to be handled under this Act, will have to apply for a permit. It seems to me, Sir, that what has happened is that to catch the little sprat we have now created a very, very wide definition which is going to catch a lot of mackerel and the Department of the hon. Deputy Minister will be busy day and night issuing permits.

There is another definition which I should like the hon. the Deputy Minister to explain to us. What is meant by the “net selling price ”? I do not understand that definition at all. It says “the net selling price to an importer in the Republic ”. Is it the f.o.b. price; the c.i.f. price; the price after customs duty has been paid; or is it the price delivered at the buyer’s warehouse? What is the meaning of “net selling price ”? This is capable of four or five different interpretations and we might just as well try to have the position cleared up now.

Sir, I was supporting the amendment moved by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) yesterday …

May I ask a question?

You know, Sir, the hon. gentleman is doing this entirely for the benefit of the Burger which is now running a daily serial on the subject. In my opinion Clause 5 will be improved by the amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. I want to illustrate how a country, which has been held up to us by other speakers, particularly the hon. member for Fort Beaufort (Dr. Jonker) as an example, with a great deal of experience in these matters, has dealt with the threat of, for example, communistic literature. It must be said immediately that this particular amendment of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout goes far beyond the position which has obtained in the United State for many years. In other words, it makes this particular clause and this legislation much more stringent in regard to the control and possibly the elimination of communist propaganda than has been the case in the United State. I think we should know exactly how they arrived at that situation in a country like America, because despite all the things we say about fighting Communism, it is surely accepted on both sides of the House that there is no country in the world which spends more time and energy, effort and money on the fight against Communism than the United States. But for the fact that the people and the Government of the United States have taken a stand against Communism, all outpourings of our own radio every Friday night against Communism would be of little avail if we were left to defend ourselves without the aid of the United States against this propaganda and against an attack. I do not think anybody would argue about that. Therefore, I think it is true to say in regard to the movement which was started by one Senator McCarthy which developed into something called McCarthyism—as I said yesterday— there was such a revulsion of feeling in the United States against the exploitation of the fight against Communism in order to establish a political ideology that we should follow that example. I think we would be well served if we followed that example. The analogy which I raised yesterday was very clearly illustrated in regard to the modern-day version of burning books. As I said before, in olden times books which were considered undesirable were burned; to-day they are banned. This was what the President of the United States—at that time—had to say on the subject—

Therefore, Sir, when the hon. member for Bezuidenhout moves an amendment stressing that the sole exception should be publications or objects being obviously communistic propaganda, it goes so far beyond the position in the United States, which was established as a result of their own experience, that I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should be prepared to accept this amendment.

While on the subject of the elimination of books which are considered by the authorities to be undesirable, let me say again that the burning of books and the banning of books come to exactly the same thing. Let us not close our eyes to the fact that in fairly recent times books have been burned, let alone banned. We have the example of Nazi Germany. [Interjections.] Fortunately an “old story”, but only about 30 years old. There was, for example, the incident when some 25,000 students gathered and burned books in the square in front of the University of Berlin. That was in 1933, on 10 May. Here is the record of the event—

He then occupied the position which is occupied administratively by our Minister of the Interior …

This was only 30 years ago, Mr. Chairman— don’t let anyone here be heard to talk about the Middle Ages—

How many times have we heard in this debate from the Government side of the House that it is love of the fatherland, that it is the desire to protect the fatherland and to protect the people of South Africa that makes this measure necessary? The moment you equate love of the fatherland with a desire to ban books, and with a refusal to accept an amendment which will make this clause, stringent as it is, a little more reasonable, then one can only say that that love for the fatherland is completely misguided.

Which fatherland do you love?

You know better than I do. I want to say this in conclusion. We have from every point of view, I think, made out a case for some amendment to be accepted by the Deputy Minister. We on this side of the House have made every effort to persuade the hon. the Deputy Minister to accept some amendment to this clause. We know very well that if he so desires, he may refuse to accept the amendment and at the same time protest his reasons for refusing to accept it. Until this afternoon—the hon. the Deputy Minister has been good enough to come into the debate from time to time and to explain his point of view—but he has not, with all due respect to him, Mr. Chairman, made out a case for refusing this amendment. To seek to protect us against the evils of certain types of literature, and at the same time to destroy our opportunity to understand why certain things are objectionable, is completely nonsensical. You cannot rejeot something merely because somebody tells you it is bad for you. You are more likely to reject it if you have the opportunity of understanding something about it, and knowing why it should be rejected. And so, Sir, in order to achieve the object of this Bill I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should be prepared to see the wisdom of relaxing some of its provisions, particularly those in Clause 5, where the hon. member for Bezuidenhout has moved a very much worthwhile amendment.

At this stage of our national existence I have at least credited the United Party with keeping pace with public opinion in South Africa. To plead the case of communist literature once again shows clearly that the United Party is unaware of what public opinion is to-day. If we are expected to establish machinery and to leave doors wide open for communist propaganda to enter and to serve as dynamite here to threaten our common existence, that is asking too much from us by way of amendments. I shall leave the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) to the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) so that he can convince him further why it is not desirable for us to accept this amendment.

I shall reply immediately to some of the other questions which were put commencing with the hon. member for Parktown (Mr. Em-din). The hon. member for Parktown asked a very interesting question, namely what were paperbacks. The best description which I can give of a paperback is a paperback. There is no definition in any dictionary or any description to put it differently. From its appearance it is very obvious that it is a paperback and I think the price of 50c ought to assist you further in determining in which category these kind of books belong.

The hon. member for Parktown asked me a few specific questions. He was worried that Bibles printed in paperback form would be included; that permits would also be necessary for those. I think it is just as well that I read once again for the hon. member’s information what Clause 5 (3) and (4) say. I read subclause (4) first because that is the reply to the question about the Bible in paperback form. It reads—

1. (iv) of any matter in any publication of a bona fide religious character.

In other words, no permits are required for Bibles in paperback form. I might add that sub-paragraph (iii) reads—

That means that technical and scientific works which come in in paperback form will not be subject to permits. I trust that satisfies the hon. member. To return to the other paperback publications which the hon. member exhibited here, it will indeed be necessary to apply for a permit in order to obtain those publications. It will be necessary for either the importer or the exporter to submit those relevant publications to the publications board and to get a permit which in the cases of most good publications will simply be a matter of procedure. The permit is, however, required, Mr. Chairman, so that the customs officials at the various ports can be supplied with the list of paperback publications in respect of which approval has been granted. I pointed out yesterday what an impossible task it was for the customs officials at the ports to scrutinize the literature which entered the country properly. The officials have to have such a list of approved works. They will be able to obtain those lists of books after the publishers concerned have made the necessary application and in that way obtained a permit.

The hon. member also asked what was meant by the net selling prices as it appears in this Bill. The net selling price is the price charged by the exporter for his publication. Any amount which gets added subsequently, such as cost of handling, etc., is over and above this net price. I think that answers the questions which were put in this connection.

I rise to reply to the first statement of the hon. the Deputy Minister, when he indicated that we on this side of the House, possibly myself included, were advocating Communism in moving this amendment. That was what he said, Sir. I think it is an extraordinary twist to give to anybody’s words, in an amendment, when the words in fact are “with the sole exception of publications or objects being obviously communistic propaganda”,

On a point of order, is the hon. member allowed to use the word “twist ”?

Did the hon. member use the word “twist ”?

I used the word “twist” in the sense that it was not a straightforward interpretation or repetition of what had been said.

The hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Sir. Then I must say that the hon. the Minister took the liberty of departing very considerably from the truth of what was said by me and other speakers on this side of the House. He took a great deal of licence in saying, in effect, that we wanted to let loose a flood of communist propaganda on to South Africa, and that we wanted to bring Communism into South Africa. I think it is an extraordinary and colossal nerve on the part of a Minister or a Deputy Minister to take one’s words out of context, turn them around and then level the old accusation of Communism. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister should withdraw what he said at the beginning of his remarks, about this side of the House. All we say and all the amendment says is “that none of the provisions shall in any way whatsoever be construed by the board, etc., with the sole exception of publications of communist propaganda ”. It is clear enough, Mr. Chairman. When I cited the position which had arisen under the Un-American Activities Committee in America, I also cited the fact that the then President of the United States said “Do not burn books”; do not ban them, in other words. Because the people of America were told they must know why they should reject Communism, does the hon. the Deputy Minister suggest that anybody advocates Communism simply by drawing the attention to the handling of the matter in a country which has. been cited ad nauseam by the hon. member for Fort Beaufort? Does the Minister suggest that? He might just as well accuse the hon. member for Fort Beaufort of being a communist. He might very well accuse him, because he drew the analogy much earlier than I did. I do not want to add to what I said about this clause, but I ask the Deputy Minister again—if he has a sense of fairness—to withdraw the accusation that he made against this side of the House, and against me as the last speaker, that we wanted to introduce Communism into South Africa, or that we wanted to let loose a flood of communist propaganda. He knows that is not true, Sir, and he should be heard to tell the House that it is not true.

I do not know why the hon. member for Hospital (Mr. Gorshel) gets so excited because the Minister said that they obviously had no major object to communist literature entering the country. He obviously has no major objection to the leftist literature which comes into the country. It enters the country under all sorts of nom de plumes and camouflaged in different ways but it is nothing else than veiled communist propaganda. Hon. members who are so indignant when we say that they obviously have no major objection to the communist-inclined literature which enters the country are equally artful with their accusation against this Government, namely that the Government is suppressing the freedom of the Press and suppressing the freedom of speech with this legislation.

I want to deal with the remarks made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout (Mr. J. D. du P. Basson) yesterday in connection with the right of appeal to the courts. It is very clear to me that he does not realize what the right of appeal to the courts means in this legislation and that he does not realize either what an influence it will have in future on the reading matter of South Africa. If I understood him correctly he said that for all practical purposes the right of appeal to the courts was useless, the reason being, according to him, that the author would not be able to afford it, the author who received an author’s share of R100 or R200. But in practice it does not work that way. In practice it is not the author who goes to court. In practice it will be the publisher who goes to court and surely the publisher can afford it. What the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and other hon. members opposite do not want to understand is the actual value of this right of appeal to the court. The actual value of the right of appeal to the court is this: If certain works are banned the publishers will make a few test cases. There need only be three or four judgments by the court—which the publishers can surely af ford—and you will have a guide, a guide not laid down by the Minister, not laid down by the board itself, but a guide laid down by the Supreme Court of South Africa, a guide which the board will in future have to follow if it does not want to have all its decisions set aside. That is the crux of the whole matter which hon. members refuse to appreciate. It will be the court that will ultimately interpret Clause 5 (e) and (d) which worry the hon. member for Bezuidenhout so much. That is why his amendment is so unnecessary. He need not tell the court how to interpret those clauses; he need not tell the court that when interpreting them it should not do this or that.

Why not?

I shall tell the hon. member why not in a moment. The Minister asked the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whether the court would ban a book because it contained criticism of a political nature against the Government and his reply by way of interjection was: “No, not the courts but the board will do so.” He admits, therefore, that it is not necessary to prescribe to the court what to do. The board will do so. Supposing the worst happens and the board does do it; supposing the board is so stupid and partial that it deliberately does so, then that publisher can take the board to court. Anyone who knows anything about these matters knows that after two or three court judgments a lead will have been given which the other Judges, the magistrates and the board will follow. The board will have to follow it willy-nilly, otherwise every one of its decisions will be set aside by the court. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout is therefore completely wide of the mark.

I do not want to go so far as to say it is malice; I will only go so far as to say that it is childish wilfullness on the part of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and on the part of the hon. member for Hospital to say that the object of this legislation is to introduce political censorship. They know that in the definition clause the main channels, the main organs which contain 95 per cent of the criticism against this Government, are specifically excluded in this Bill. All the main critics of this Government are specifically excluded. As I say, 95 per cent of the criticism against the Government is excluded in this Bill. But in spite of that they deliberately grasp at this clause and say that it proves that the Government is introducing this legislation with the specific object of introducing political censorship, of suppressing the freedom of the Press, the freedom of thought and the freedom of criticism in South Africa. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout reminds me of an extremely naughty child who says: “Dad, tell me how the lion bit you.”

I would rather not say what you remind me of.

That makes no difference. You are always reminded of the same thing whether you look at me or anybody else. The hon. member reminds me of the very naughty child who asks: “Dad, tell me how the lion bit you.” His father then tells him. Then he asks, “Dad, tell me how the snake bit you,” and his father tells him. “Dad, tell me how the tiger bit you.” His father tells him. He carries on like that until his father tells him to stop. The child then bursts out crying and when his father asks, “Why do you cry,” he says: “Dad, you have not yet told me how the fleas bit you.” Because here the Government is excluding all the lions which can bite it, all the tigers who can criticize and bite it are excluded, all the snakes and jackals which can bite it are excluded, but the hon. member for Bezuidenhout raises a big moan because this Bill does not also exclude the fleas which can criticize the Government. I want to know from the hon. member for Bezuidenhout whom he is really protecting; on whose side is he really?

Political fleas.

Yes, to a great extent, but who are they? to-day he is on the side of the “Fighting Talks”, on the side of the “New Age ”. Those are the people whom he wants to defend.

Look at the last part of my amendment.

The people whose company he keeps are the people whom he defends. But what the hon. member did not tell us was that if the Government wanted to close them down it did not require this legislation. You do not require this legislation to close down a periodical or a newspaper in South Africa. That is why I say we are taking them too seriously, Sir, when we talk about malice. I say it is pure wilfullness and childishness to continue to allege that this Bill is being introduced in order to apply political censorship and to suppress criticism against this Government. I do not think we need concern ourselves about that any further or take any further notice of that.

But I come to another point which was made by the hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant). He had a great deal to say yesterday about “precensorship ”. He challenged the Minister to say whether he was in favour of “precensorship” or not and he went on to say that Clause 5 which deals with publications under 50c contained the principle of “precensorship ”. But does the hon. member for Turffontein not know that the Minister, the customs officials, have the right to-day to detain anything at the harbours if they want to?

No.

As the law stands at the moment the officials at the harbours have the right to detain everything and to read it if only they had the time and the staff. They need not allow anything to enter until they have finished reading it and if they are in doubt about it they refer it to the present Censorship Board and the present Censorship Board can make recommendations to the Minister. Had they had the staff it would have been possible to create a state of complete precensorship. But the reason why the procedure has changed is that the customs officials simply have not got the machinery and the staff to undertake this gigantic task. But according to the Bill which is before us at the moment it is not a question of “precensorship” as alleged by the hon. member. Because what happens? The importers can obtain blanket exemptions as far as certain periodicals are concerned. They can, for instance, obtain a blanket exemption for Popular Mechanics or such a periodical as Time or Saturday Evening Post, or something like Punch or all the books of Agatha Christie or all the books by John Creasy, and it is only a question of time and they will have obtained all the blanket exemptions. In other words, for a certain period, say for a year, the board will allow them to import all the editions of Punch for example without scrutinizing them. That is not precensorship. The same applies in the case of 90 per cent of that type of periodical and in the case of the paperbacks of well-known writers like Agatha Christie, etc. The only case where there will be precensorship once this law is in full operation is where a publication is of a doubtful nature. [Time limit.]

I think the hon. member for Vereeniging (Mr. B. Coetzee) is more effective leading gangs breaking up meetings than when he is trying to defend this Bill.

Order! The hon. member must confine himself to the clause.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has insinuated now that I led a gang to break up a political meeting. I want to tell him that it is an infamous lie (’n infame leuen) and I demand that he should not only withdraw those words, but also tender an apology for that untruth.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw.

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has made a false accusation which may harm the hon. member for Vereeniging, not only in this House, but also outside and therefore he should also apologize to the hon. member for Vereeniging.

Order! I have given my ruling, and the hon. member has withdrawn. The hon. member may continue. * *

He is too scared to say so outside.

The hon. member for Vereeniging accused this side of the House of moving amendments in order to assist leftist papers, leftist publications. The hon. Deputy Minister did the same. The amendment moved by this side, however, distinctly and clearly excludes communist orientated literature from the amendment, and the hon. member for Vereeniging and the Deputy Minister know that and yet they come to this House to make accusations against us when before them is an amendment clearly stating that communist propaganda or any matter that can assist the communists is excluded therefrom. If that is not mis-presenting an amendment before this House then I do not know what is.

But I want to deal further with the hon. member for Vereeniging who in this House on this issue claimed that we were objecting to the powers contained in this clause, and amongst other things he stated that my Leader was involved with the yellowest of the yellow Press in South Africa, and he named a particular paper, the Landstem, and he accused my Leader of having shares in the Landstem which was the yellowest of the yellow Press. Now I want to place on record a letter written by the hon. member for Vereeniging, written by that same member, on 1 December 1962, that is 2½ months ago—

Then he goes on—

And he ends up—

That is what this member wrote in a letter to the paper which he now calls the yellowest of the yellow Press in South Africa, and if he believes that that is the yellowest of the yellow Press and if he believes that it should continue (because he says “Gaan so voort ”), then he is arguing against his own case, because he is arguing that that sort of thing must be stopped, and yet in a letter to the paper itself, he tells them to continue. That is the sort of argument we are getting from this Government and from that member in particular. We are asked to support a measure to put a stop to low-class stuff, and then the hon. member writes and asks that very same paper to carry on doing what he himself is condemning.

The hon. member for Vereeniging accuses us on this side of the House of wishing to make this measure so hamstrung that it will not be effective in stopping communist literature, but he does not tell the House and he does not tell the public that this side of the House has said over and over again that we believe in the courts of South Africa. The hon. member should know that the courts have defined the question of indecent literature. The court has said—-

That is a decision of a court in South Africa and that decision was taken in a case which the hon. member knows about, when his company was involved, and the courts have already ruled that they have the power to deal with corruption of public morals. That is a wide enough definition. The court laid down—

The court has laid down what it regards as corrupt and obscene. The hon. member knows it. I do not want to be personal, but I am saying that the hon. member knows this judgment and he knows the cost that was involved, but you do not need to tie down the courts in detail as to what they shall or shall not decide. Our amendment deletes the sub-sections which will tie down the board or the court, and the case against our amendment has not yet been put from the Government benches. Our case stands and it has not been answered in any shape or form by any sound reason or argument from the other side of the House.

I move—

Ayes—88: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coet-zee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.: de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.: Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—46: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H.C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Hen wood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Mool-man, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn. S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.

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

Motion accordingly agreed to.

Question put: That all the words after“make” in line 52, up to and including “(b)” in line 54, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause, Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—88: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. L; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G.H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. I.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—46: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H.C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and H. Suzman.

Question accordingly affirmed and the first and second amendments proposed by Mrs. Suzman dropped.

Question put: That all the words from the commencement of sub-paragraph (ii) of paragraph (b) of sub-section (1), up to and including “eight” in line 61, proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause, Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—88: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—46: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G.N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the third amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman negatived.

Amendments proposed by the Deputy Minister of the Interior put and agreed to.

Question put: That paragraph (c) of subsection (1), proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause, Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—89: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—47: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell. J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Streicher, D. M.: Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.: Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and H. Suzman.

Question accordingly affirmed and the fourth amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman negatived.

Fifth amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman in line 79, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—89: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Plessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman. G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens. J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.t van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—47: Basson. J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie. R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Streicher, D. M.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: C. Barnett and H. Suzman.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Question put: That paragraphs (b) to (f) of sub-section (2), proposed to be omitted, stand part of the clause, Upon which the Committee divided:

Ayes—88: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.: Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.: Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. L; Coetzee, B.; Coetzee, P. J.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labu-schagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H.G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman. B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl. J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse. J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—47: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds. P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin. S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie. R. G. L.: Lewis, H.; Mitchell. D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman. R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.: Tucker. H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

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

Question accordingly affirmed and the amendment proposed by Mr. Tucker and the sixth amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman negatived.

Seventh amendment proposed by Mrs. Suzman in line 53, page 6, the amendment proposed by Mr. Miller in the same line and the remaining amendments proposed by Mrs. Suzman were put and negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. J. D. du P. Basson put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—48: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel, A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn. S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

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

Noes—88: Badenhorst, F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Heystek, J.; Hiemstra. E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P.; Kotzé, S. F.; Labus-chagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan. W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Potgieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rail. J. J.; Rail. J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch. J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman. J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe. P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden. J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl. J. J. B.: Venter. M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse. J. H.; von Moltke. J. von S.; Vorster. B. J.; Vosloo. A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Faurie and J. J. Fouché. Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as amended, put and the Committee divided:

Ayes—87: Badenhorst. F. H.; Bekker, G. F. H.; Bekker, M. J. H.; Bezuidenhout, G. P. C.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Cloete, J. H.; Coertze, L. I.; Coetzee, B.; Cruywagen, W. A.; de Villiers, J. D.; de Wet, C.; Diederichs, N.; Donges, T. E.; du Piessis, H. R. H.; Fouché, J. J. (Sr.); Frank, S.; Froneman, G. F. van L.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Haak, J. F. W.; Hertzog, A.; Hiemstra, E. C. A.; Jonker, A. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Knobel, G. J.; Kotze, G. P. Kotzé, S. F.; Labuschagne, J. S.; le Roux, P. M. K.; Luttig, H. G.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, J. A.; Marais, P. S.; Maree, G. de K.; Martins, H. E.; Meyer, T.; Mostert, D. J. J.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Nel, J. A. F.; Niemand, F. J.; Otto, J. C.; Pot-gieter, D. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Sadie, N. C. van R.; Sauer, P. O.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Schoonbee, J. F.; Smit, H. H.; Stander, A. H.; Steyn, F. S.; Steyn, J. H.; Treurnicht, N. F.; Uys, D. C. H.; van den Berg, M. J.; van den Heever, D. J. G.; van der Ahee, H. H.; van der Merwe, P. S.; van der Spuy, J. P.; van der Walt, B. J.; van der Wath, J. G. H.; van Eeden, F. J.; van Niekerk, G. L. H.; van Nierop, P. J.; van Rensburg, M. C. G. J.; van Staden, J. W.; van Wyk, G. H.; van Wyk, H. J.; van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, M. J. de la R.; Venter, W. L. D. M.; Verwoerd, H. F.; Viljoen, M.; Visse, J. H.; von Moltke, J. von S.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, A. H.; Webster, A.

Tellers: W. H. Fourie and J. J. Fouché.

Noes—48: Barnett, C.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Bowker, T. B.; Bronkhorst, H. J.; Cadman, R. M.; Connan, J. M.; Cronje, F. J. C.; de Kock, H. C.; Dodds, P. R.; Durrant, R. B.; Eaton, N. G.; Emdin, S.; Field, A. N.; Fisher, E. L.; Gay, L. C.; Gorshel. A.; Henwood, B. H.; Hickman, T.; Higgerty, J. W.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Lewis, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Moore, P. A.; Odell, H. G. O.; Oldfield, G. N.; Plewman, R. P.; Radford, A.; Raw, W. V.; Ross, D. G.; Russell, J. H.; Steenkamp, L. S.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Suzman, H.; Taurog, L. B.; Thompson, J. O. N.; Timoney, H. M.; Tucker, H.; van der Byl, P.; van Niekerk, S. M.; Warren, C. M.; Waterson, S. F.; Wood, L. F.

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

Clause, as amended, accordingly agreed to.

The Title of the Bill having been agreed to, House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

COLOURED DEVELOPMENT CORPORA-TION AMENDMENT BILL

Fourth Order read: Third reading, —Coloured Development Corporation Amendment Bill.

Bill read a third time.

RURAL COLOURED AREAS BILL

Fifth Order read: House to go into Committee on Rural Coloured Areas Bill.

House in Committee:

On Clause 1,

I move the amendment as printed in my name—

I do not think this amendment calls for any explanation; it is simply designed to bring the two texts into line.

Amendment put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

On Clause 37,

I move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

The effect of this amendment, if carried, will be to abolish the criminal sanctions which are provided for in the clause as it now stands. As the matter now stands, notice is given by the board, in terms of sub-section (2), calling upon the ratepayer to pay the amount due within one month from the date of the notice, and if any person fails to pay his rates, criminal proceedings are instituted against him, and sub-section (3) provides that thereafter execution can be levied on his movables. The effect of my amendment will be to cut the criminal sanctions to allow the notice to be given and for the ratepayer’s movables to be attached if he fails to pay. I must say that I realize the difficulties that the Minister has to contend with here; I want to say that quite frankly. I know the real practical difficulty but I am not satisfied that this is the method to deal with the difficulty. The Minister indicated, I think, in his second reading speech that there were difficulties associated with the folk that he had to deal with in the administration of his Department, and that unless criminal sanctions are available to the board under such circumstances, a long backlog of unpaid rates is likely to be built up and the financial stability of the area under the control of that board may be undermined through non-payment of rates, and that simply a power to attach and sell the movables of the ratepayer would be insufficient to force payment of the rates. In other words, what the Minister is after is to get something which will make it virtually certain that the ratepayer will pay his rates within the period allowed in this Bill for the due payment. Sir, this provision is not in any other law. We have had to deal with similar people, not as a race but people who will not pay their rates. This is not something which pertains to any race and I do not want what I am saying to be read that way. People who will not and cannot pay their rates are found in all walks of life and in all races, and under the local government ordinances in all four provinces at the present time provision is made for notice to be served, a first date and a second date from which interest will run and then movables can be attached and sold to defray the cost of any such action and to provide the money to pay the rates, and in the event of the movables realizing insufficient, then action can be taken to attach the immovable property of a ratepayer. I am not quite certain after reading this Bill carefully whether there are going to be what I would call the number of landed proprietors in these areas that you usually have to deal with in the case of what I would call an orthodox local authority area where by and large the ratepayers concerned are folk who have the ownership of land and/or buildings. I am not quite certain that that is the case here. There may be people here who are holding erven on a long-term rental basis and not on ownership basis, but if they are holding it on an ownership basis—and certainly a lot of them will be—then I suggest to the Minister that what should be done, although I have not moved an amendment with that object in view, is to do exactly what is being done under the ordinary local ordinances in the provinces, that is to say, to proceed against the person civilly and then to attach his movables and thereafter his immovables in the event of his failing to pay, with the property eventually returning, when it is sold, in this particular case to the ownership of a member of a race who is not a disqualified person. That is a difficulty that the Minister has to contend with and, Sir, when the Minister wants this kind of legislation then he must expect that kind of difficulty to arise. He might make some arrangement within his own Department to do something in the way of taking back those properties. But, of course, I realize the fundamental trouble and the fundamental trouble is that he is going to dispossess the people whom he is establishing, and that arises from the fact that this is not a viable community that you are dealing with. In the main I believe it will be a long time before these communities will be sufficiently strong economically to be looked upon as viable communities where the normal processes adopted in terms of the local government ordinances to-day can be applied to them. But, Sir, those people are with us; this is not a new phenomenon. It is a new phenomenon to have all those people together in a separate local authority area. to-day they are scattered about in all our local authorities, but they are there. I think the provision made here to apply criminal sanctions against a man because he failed to pay his rates is wrong. I think it is a very bad principle. I said earlier on that you are going to have endless trouble in connection with the enforcement of this provision. The board is the authority to take action in a place where everybody is known to everybody else, where very often they are related; the board takes action and it is going to make criminals out of people who are remiss in paying their rates. No White local authority could ever survive one election if it were to suggest a scheme of that kind. Here it is not the local authority, the board, that is being constituted in terms of this measure that is asking for this power. We in Parliament are forcing it on them willy-nilly. The Minister shakes his head. The answer is that we are doing it here in Parliament. We are passing this provision; the board is not passing it. I would appeal to the Minister to have second thoughts about this provision, and if he is willing to delete it here then perhaps he may be able to cope with it in the Other Place. Sir, we know that these people are struggling. That is why we gave our blessing to the Bill. We did not give our blessing to it because it is building up homelands for Coloured people and all this nonsense that a certain paragraphist writing to one of the papers recently blabbered about. We did it because we think it offers practical advantages to a group of people who to-day are down-trodden and who are going to be given some real benefits in these areas; and it is going to clear up a mess of other troubles. Sir, do not let us in addition to that have criminal sanctions which are going to land these people in gaol. The position will be that many hundreds will not be able to pay. Do not let us make criminals of them because they cannot pay their rates. I accept that there are real difficulties; it is going to give the Minister’s Department and his officials endless troubles and many a thick headache but we have to deal with it; these people have to be uplifted somehow. Let us be generous now instead of putting a provision like this in the law which is going to control them.

I also have a request to make to the Minister in regard to this clause. I do not want the hon. the Minister to spoil, by means of this clause, a very good Bill which I welcome 100 per cent. I want to state my position very clearly. This provision that people may be sent to prison if they do not pay their taxes is indeed necessary in certain circumstances. The House must not think that I regard that as unnecessary. There are certain reserves in my constituency where people do not have rights of ownership. They have in fact merely occupational rights. There are a couple of instances, particularly in one reserve, where when the local board tells a person he must pay his tax, he simply says, “But I do not pay taxes.” It is not a question of his not being in a position to pay the tax. He does not want to pay it. Hon. members must not think that the local board is un reasonable. It exercises patience. These boards are composed of their own people and understand the circumstances of each of the inhabitants. As I said, when a board asks such a person to pay his tax, then his answer is: “No, I do not pay tax. I was given ownership by Queen Victoria and I need not pay.” That is an absolute fact. When you ask him when Queen Victoria gave him the right to refuse to pay taxes he tells you that Sam Kahn said so. I speak here from practical experience. What does the board do in such a case? It is patient, and eventually says: We now have no alternative; we will now have to sell your effects; you have 25 sheep and 2 head of cattle. The taxpayer’s answer to this is: “No, they are not mine. What gave you that idea? They are my wife’s or my children’s”, with the result that the board is unable to get anything from him. To cut a long story short, the board is obliged eventually, because the man is so impertinent, to obtain an order from the magistrate and then he has to get out of the reserve. That is what happens as a result of the absolute impertinence of some of these people. I speak here from experience; these are things I frequently have to deal with. There are certain of them who just will not pay their taxes, although they are able to. It is usually a matter of R3, R4 or R5. but they do not want to pay because Sam Kahn told them that Queen Victoria said they need not pay taxes, and that they have nothing to do with the Republic. You cannot convince those people. What happens then is that when they are forced to leave the reserve they go to the towns, where they become a burden to everybody; the State has to look after them. Now, if the board were able to tell such a person that unless he pays the R5 the board will take him to the magistrate and he will have to go to gaol, that would jerk him up and he would pay his tax, because he does not want to go to gaol. Therefore I say that in certain cases where people have a right of occupation but no ownership rights, I agree with the provisions of this clause. But now I come to the other side of the matter. Sooner or later every Coloured person living in an incorporated area will be given the ownership rights. In some instances it will take place quite soon and in other cases it will take longer. But they will get ownership rights as far as the plots on which they live are concerned. I say it is unreasonable for a person who has ownership rights in a rural area to have to go to gaol on account of not paying his tax, while the Coloured person residing in a municipal area need not go to gaol. In his case they seize his immovable property and it is sold. I have no specific proposal, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he could not amend this clause accordingly. This would meet my difficulties and we would then be consistent. Why should we differentiate between a person living in a rural area who has ownership rights and a person living in a municipal area who also has rights of ownership? They both have ownership rights. Their circumstances are really the same. In the one case the person’s property can be sold, and in the other case has to go to gaol. I would very much like us to effect an amendment. Where the person merely has a right of occupation, I am unable to tell the Minister how he could improve on this clause. If the Minister is unable now to propose something along these lines in order to effect a change, I shall be glad if he would let this clause stand over until something can be drafted to meet those difficulties. I think the Coloured people in the rural areas and all of us welcome this Bill in every respect, except this particular clause which can easily be amended to meet those difficulties. Then everybody will be satisfied.

I appreciate the motive behind the amendment of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) but unfortunately I cannot share in his concern in connection with this matter. If the hon. member reads Clause 37 correctly he will see that the provision to which he objects creates what is practically an extenuating circumstance. It is virtually a protective measure in respect of the person to whom these rates are applicable. The Bill provides that the date will be 30 April of every year or a date agreed upon by the ratepayer. It is not that the ratepayer necessarily has to pay his rates on 30 April. If he cannot pay, he can fix a date by means of agreement. In reality that penalty objected to by the hon. member for South Coast is something which protects the ratepayer. It serves merely to encourage him to contact the receiver when he receives the account and to say: I cannot pay; can we not arrange another date on which I can pay my rates? In this I see an extenuating circumstance. His crop may perhaps fail because of hail damage or because of rain or something else and another date for payment will then be determined. It says here that he can fix any date by arrangement with the management board. The only possibility of his being sent to gaol will be if he does not arrange an alternative date for payment. That is as I see the matter. I take it that this penalty has been imposed to encourage the type of person who is not used to paying rates, to arrange a date on which he can pay those rates. I think that this is the reason why the leaders in the various reserves have agreed with this provision. They asked for it. If he does not arrange an alternative date he must be heavily punished and once he has been punished, he still has six months in which to pay. He does not even have to pay then. He can make arrangements again and fix a date for payment. In other words, I really cannot see when this maximum penalty will ever be applied if the person acts as the law allows him to.

What if the person cannot pay? What if he does not have the money to pay?

One has to consider the fact that many of these people have certain holdings on which they live and on which they are registered as land owners. The law provides that they must pay rates. There may be circumstances whereby such a person cannot pay his rates on a certain date. He must have some income, is that not so? At a certain time of the year he must have some sort of income and if he has no income, he can arrange with the management board to pay his rates on a date on which he feels it is convenient for him to pay those rates. And when he reaches that stage he can make further arrangements. If he has a sound argument, I cannot see them trying to get blood out of a stone.

1 considered very carefully the remarks made by the hon. the Minister when he introduced this Bill. He made great play of the fact that this clause was inserted at the request of certain boards in these particular areas because they felt that unless there was some threat over the people they would not pay. I accept that explanation, but I do not accept the principle. Now for the first time in any law affecting Coloured people we are introducing this principle. The hon. member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux) asked the Minister not to spoil this particular Bill by introducing the principle of putting a man in gaol if he does not pay. This House accepted that principle in other legislation on previous occasions and we did away with civil imprisonment for debt. I do believe that by educating these people and giving them the privileges which will flow from the Bill which is now before us they will become prouder and more anxious to play their part in the development of that area. I am going to support the amendment moved by the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell). I am not quite sure that it goes as far as the one I want. I want to propose to omit all the words after “notice” in line 38 and to substitute the word “notice” for “conviction” in line 44. I would like the hon. member for South Coast to consider whether we are ad idem on my amendment. What my proposal really means is that the clause will read—

That is where I want it to stop. I want to excise that portion of the clause dealing with the criminal aspect. If the Minister feels that there has to be something to force these people to pay then I have another amendment which I shall move but at this stage I think the Minister will be acting in accordance with modern thinking if he does not— and I emphasize this fact—for the first time introduce any clause which will make it a criminal offence not to pay. The Minister may reply and say that the boards have told him that they have no alternative; the people will not pay, but I think we should give it a chance. We should see whether they will pay. I think the Minister will not earn the respect of the Coloured people outside these reserves if he makes this a criminal offence. I think one of the best points made, an almost unanswerable point, is the one made by the hon. member for Karoo. He said that the people in these reserves may have to go to gaol for not paying but their relatives who live in the municipal area will not go to gaol if they do not pay. The payment of rates presupposes ownership of property. I realize that it will be some time before rates will be levied in these reserves and that is why I feel that these people may be educated by that time. At this stage of the management they will still pay their £2 levy now as amended. Then you have to have a valuation court and the whole process of valuation courts, such as objections, will have to be gone through before rates will be levied. That is why I do not think that this will come into force within the next year or two.

What about the

£2?

I think “rates” here means the rates levied on the property, not the £2 which is a tax. That is my view. I think that can be clarified at a later stage. My view is that at the moment they have to pay a tax of £2. I do not think there is anything in the Bill which says if they do not pay their taxes they will go to gaol. Then you have to rate their property and that rate is fixed on the value of the property on 30 April of each year. I will await the reaction of the Minister in regard to this clause and see whether he will accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for South Coast. If he finds that it is necessary at some later stage to come with something more drastic then I think we might be able to help him, but give these people an opportunity of knowing and learning their responsibilities. I do make an appeal to the Minister to accept this amendment. I am not moving my amendment now, Mr. Chairman, I will support the amendment moved by the hon. member for South Coast.

I wish to draw the attention of the hon. member for South Coast (Mr. D. E. Mitchell) to Clause 32. There the hon. member will find that—

1. (a) grant exemption or reduction to a person liable to rates on the ground of permanent physical disability, old age or widowhood.

In other words, I have the power to alleviate the position of people who cannot pay.

Secondly, I wish to point out to the hon. member that this specific proposal is being brought forward by me at the request of the boards concerned. The boards in the rural areas had a conference and they came forward with this proposal.

Was that the request of the ratepayers in those areas?

No. The boards are having some difficulty and it is very difficult for me …

The municipal boards?

No, the control boards. Those control boards consist of Coloured people. They said: “You must take drastic steps to enable us to control these areas and to improve them, to develop them; the people have no sense of responsibility.” We are not acting against people who cannot pay, we are not taking action against sick people, etc. We are after those people who are not prepared to accept their responsibility towards their boards and their communities, as the hon. member for Karoo (Mr. G. S. P. le Roux) said.

Thirdly, I wish to say that the hon. member is apparently also trying to secure ample time, as I read his amendment, for the giving of notice but the present procedure is that a person is told to pay on 2 January, for instance. That notice is given three months before 2 January. The last day to pay is 30 April. That means six months. That is in terms of existing regulations. Under this proposal we give another month. It means actually that they have seven to eight months’ time from the day they receive the notice to pay. If a person has seven to eight months’ notice to pay and he is still not in a position to pay at the end of that period, or rather he is in a position to pay but he refuses to pay because he does not want to accept his responsibility, I say there must be some measure or other to deal with him if you want to teach these people to accept their responsibilities towards their communities.

May I ask the hon. the Minister a question? I see his point, but why does he not in that case levy against the landed property?

He has not got landed property.

That is a different matter.

I see the hon. member’s point that we must not legislate ourselves. Would the hon. member be satisfied if we omitted the words after “rand” in line 39 of Clause 37?

That is all right.

Then we do not legislate specifically. Under these circumstances it would be better to say “and any person who fails to pay his rates accordingly shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding R50 ”. Let us make it R50 instead of R25.

We are not making a bargain.

No, I am not bargaining but I feel I must have a measure to show these people that they must accept their responsibilities.

Why not give the boards the power to make regulations to deal with this matter?

The boards have powers but this is a situation with which the boards cannot cope. They come to us for protection. We are dealing with difficult people as the hon. member for Karoo admitted. The hon. member must remember that most of these people have the right of occupation and we are now granting them rights of ownership. We must see to it that every one of these rural areas is developed properly and that the people develop a sense of responsibility. I feel the furthest I can go is to say that “any person who fails to pay his rates accordingly shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding R50 ”. If hon. members are prepared to accept this suggestion of mine we can do it.

Sir. we are grateful to the hon. the Minister for the consideration which he has given to the suggestions which have come from this side of the House. I am sure if there were means whereby we could find common ground to meet the position which the Minister has indicated he would be amenable to meet the situation. The Minister has told us that on the recommendation of the various boards it has become necessary for him to impose some penal sanctions against those people who deliberately refused to pay their rates. There are. unfortunately, in every community people who would not shoulder their responsibilities and the only way in which you can get them to do so is to impose some form of penal sanctions against them.

Whilst I agree with the hon. the Minister that Clause 37 (2) can be amended by stopping short at “R25” and that it is a step in the right direction. I must point out to the hon. the Minister that in terms of our general criminal laws in this country if in any statute a fine is imposed without a provision for an alternative imprisonment sentence, the general laws apply and imprisonment follows automatically. I am sympathetic to the approach which the hon. the Minister has made and I want to make a suggestion which I think may solve the matter. I am certain in my own mind that the boards and the Minister will not capriciously prosecute people criminally and have fines and alternative sentences imposed upon them. The Minister pointed out that in terms of Clause 32 which we have already passed the Minister on the recommendation of the board of management and on such conditions as he may decide, may grant exemption or reduction to any person liable to rates on the ground of permanent physical disability, old age or widowhood. May I suggest to the hon. the Minister that he will meet the situation if at some stage or other he introduces an amendment to that clause on these lines namely that he extends the circumstances upon which he can grant these exemptions or reductions. At the moment it is only in the case of physical disability, old age or widowhood. If the Minister will extend the circumstances in that “if the ratepayer is in impecunious circumstances or unemployed” he will meet the position. There may be genuine cases where the man has not got the money to pay those rates. The non-payment may not be due to any wilfullness on his part. If the Minister would amend Clause 32 by taking unto himself the power to make a reduction or grant exemption in the case of permanent physical disability, old age, widowhood, impecunious circumstances or unemployment then I think the objections raised to Clause 37 will disappear. Then the hon. the Minister will be entitled to say that they will only prosecute those people who wilfully refuse to pay their rates. If the Minister has power to deal with every case on its merits, that is to say, if the board or alternatively if the Minister’s officials are satisfied that it is a genuine case of a ratepayer not being able to pay by reason of his impecunious circumstances or by reason of the fact that he is temporarily unemployed, I think the Minister will be meeting the whole situation.

How will you ascertain whether it is wilful?

The point is this that unless the ratepayer proves to the satisfaction of the board or of the Minister that he is in impecunious circumstances or is unemployed, then he can be charged and penal sanctions can be visited upon him in terms of this clause unless the Minister grants him an exemption. But if the Minister leaves the exemptions to the narrow scope of Clause 32 he will find himself in difficulties. In terms of Clause 32 the Minister can only grant exemptions in the case of permanent physical disability, old age or widowhood. I suggest that at a later stage the Minister should amend that clause and take unto himself the power in consultation with the boards to grant exemptions in cases where the man can prove that he is in impecunious circumstances or that he is unemployed. If the Minister does that I think he will meet the situation. In every other case he will be entitled to prosecution and the penalties which are imposed here can stand. I suggest to the hon. Minister to give this favourable consideration.

I suggest that the Committee passes this clause and I undertake to go into the whole matter in the light of the views expressed by hon. members and to bring about the alteration in the Other Place.

I do not want to carry on a conversation with the hon. the Minister across the floor of the House. He very kindly put a point to me to which I think I should reply. My worry arises from the legal position which has been referred to by the hon. member for Peninsula (Mr. Bloomberg), namely that if the wording stopped not the point suggested by the Minister imprisonment would follow anyway if he did not pay. So we fall foul of the point which the hon. member made, and what about those people who through ill-luck are unable to pay? It seems to me that that point has not been taken care of.

I can grant them exemptions.

You cannot grant them exemption under Clause 32 as it stands at the moment because Clause 32 limits it to those three classes. I think on the basis of the Minister’s undertaking to reconsider the whole matter because as I understand him he is taking cognizance of the fact that everybody on this side of the House, I think, feels that that matter should be dealt with in a manner other than that prescribed here in the Bill….

I will go into it.

Then we are prepared to accept it.

In the light of the undertaking given by the hon. the Minister and in the light of the amendment which he has moved I am quite satisfied with this clause. I have personal experience of this sort of thing. There are parts of my constituency where we have to deal with this problem. The comparisons which have been drawn here with municipal areas are quite wrong. In the first instance, if a person is the owner of property on which he lives in a municipal area and he is in arrears with his rates, action can be taken against him under the position as it is at present. If he is a lessee in a municipal area and he falls into arrears with his rent, the owner can obtain an eviction order against him and put him on the street. But the person in a reserve is not the owner. He is living on premises on which he has to make his living and support a family. This clause is a retention of Section 19 of Act 29 of 1909. The only difference is that this clause has an additional subsection (2). What does one do if one has a case which is administered by the Department of Social Welfare under which settlements fall and where a person has not kept up his in settlements? If the Department of Social Welfare takes that person and throws him on the street, that person still remains the problem of Social Welfare if he cannot make a living and does not have work. As far as I am concerned I am quite satisfied with the amendment as_ it has been effected as well as the undertaking which the hon. the Minister gave us. In this way we will be able to solve the problem in the best way possible.

I would draw the hon. Minister’s attention to Clause 52 (c), which says—

I just draw the Minister’s attention to it because it is of no use as long as the provision stands in Clause 37. As long as that stands, he cannot make use of this provision as a means for escaping the provisions of Clause 37, but if 37 is altered, then a way of dealing with it may be by means of (c) of Clause 52.

With leave of the Committee, the amendment proposed by Mr. D. E. Mitchell was withdrawn.

Clause, as printed, put and agreed to.

On Clause 54,

I move the amendment standing in my name—

This clause deals with the delegation of powers by the Minister, and if my amendment is accepted the clause will read—

The power conferred under Section 52 of the Act, which has just been passed, is the power to make regulations, and until 1949 that power was vested not in a Minister but in the Governor, which shows the importance which earlier Parliaments had attached to this power to make regulations.

I fully realize that powers of delegation in somewhat similar terms are already contained in the legislation which is about to be repealed, but I understood the hon. the Minister to say that those powers existed in the 1909 Act (Act No. 29 of 1909). That is not exactly correct, because the powers of delegation were only introduced in 1949 by Section 15 of an amending Act, Act No. 12 of 1949. Now I also realize that that would have been an appropriate time in which to add some qualifying provisions to these wide powers of delegation, but it is easy to understand why it was omitted at that time. Parliament was then dealing with an amending Act which does not show up the significance of what the powers of delegation amount to; it certainly does not show them up as clearly as we see them in a consolidating measure such as this. So whilst that would have been an appropriate time, I do not think we must overlook that the need for adding some qualification still exists.

My amendment goes no further than what the hon. the Minister himself indicated it was intended that the clause should go. In his reply to the second-reading debate, the hon. the Minister said—

Then he went on to indicate that powers of that nature are necessary, and he said that they would be vested either in the Secretary of the Department or the Deputy Secretary or the Under-Secretary. We concede that powers of delegation are necessary. That is common cause. It is only the question of whether they should be given without qualification, and I hope the hon. the Minister will agree that qualification in this instance is reasonable and necessary and that it will not do anything at all to restrict administration under the Act, but that it will preserve this power which should be vested in the Minister of making regulations.

I have no objection to the second part of the amendment. I think the tradition is that a Minister never delegates the power to make regulations to an official. I do not know of any instance where that has happened. But as far as the first part of the amendment is concerned. I must point out to the hon. member that the words “senior administratiewe be-ampte” has a specific meaning in the Civil Service and that is not a “senior official ”. “Senior administratiewe beampte” is a junior official in the Civil Service, and therefore I cannot accept that part of his amendment, because it would mean that I would be bound to delegate the power to make regulations to an official who is really a junior.

I accept the difficulty of the hon. the Minister. Times change and obviously designations also change. I was not aware of the significance of the term “senior administrative officer

With the leave of the Committee, the first part of the amendment proposed by Mr. Plewman was withdrawn.

Remaining amendment proposed by Mr. Plewman put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, put and agreed to.

Remaining Clauses, Schedules and Title of the Bill put and agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

EXPLOSIVES AMENDMENT BILL

Sixth Order read: Second reading, —Explosives

Amendment Bill.

I move—

This amending Bill has a twofold purpose, firstly, to increase the penalties which can be imposed for an offence under the Explosives Act, and secondly, to remove the provision in respect of certain licensing fees and the validity of licences and permits in connection with the production and handling of explosives which are at present laid down in the Act, and in their stead to provide that these matters can be arranged by means of regulations issued in terms of the Act.

As far as the proposed increase in the penalties is concerned, I just want to say that the suggested amendments to the Act are being effected in pursuance of consultations between this Department and the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice was of the opinion that the fines and periods of imprisonment were disproportionately low with a view to the granting of some of the offences which can be committed in terms of this Act. As far as the specific fines are concerned, it must moreover be borne in mind that the value of money has fallen considerably since the fines were laid down in the original Act. These provisions therefore also make provision for that change in the value of money itself so that the fine will also now serve as a deterrent.

In connection with the second aim of the Bill, the position at present is that the validity of permits and licences for the manufacture, storage and distribution of explosives is laid down in the Act itself. It has been found necessary on various occasions in the past to amend the provisions concerning these moneys and periods of validity because of circumstances. It has appeared to be necessary to review or amend the provisions of the Act every now and again. The aim of this Bill is to provide that those provisions will be removed from the Act and authority is being given hereby to make these determinations by way of regulation.

I come now to the last aspect of this Bill which is contingent upon the question of penalties. This aspect is contained in Clause 15. It amounts to an extension of the present provision in the Act in regard to the jurisdiction of magistrates’ courts in the sense that certain of the powers which the magistrates’ courts have are being given to regional courts. In 1956 provision was made for the institution of regional courts and their jurisdiction has been increased to an amount of R600 or three years’ imprisonment. This clause therefore makes provision whereby certain offences against the law can be referred to these regional courts.

I would like to tell the hon. the Minister that in principle we agree that in the circumstances existing to-day there is justification for the increase of penalties, as referred to by the hon. the Minister, and we propose to support the second reading of the Bill. We will propose certain amendments in Committee, but those deal with matters of detail, and I think it would be better to leave them over and to deal with them at that time.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

COMPANIES AMENDMENT BILL

Seventh Order read: Second reading, —Companies Amendment Bill.

I move—

The provisions of the Bill before the House are of an uncontentious nature and are chiefly intended to facilitate or improve the administration of the present Act in certain respects.

Before giving a general explanation of this proposed Bill, I would like to remark that I am fully aware of the fact that the whole of the present Act should be reviewed and I have also received numbers of proposals from organized trade and industry as well as from individuals in this regard. Most of these proposals are of a far-reaching nature and the Cabinet has accordingly already decided to obtain the State President's approval for the appointment of a fully-fledged commission of inquiry into the improvement, modernization and consolidation of the present Act. Before taking the final steps in this connection, however, we are awaiting the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Certain Aspects of the Stock Exchange. This report will most probably be available early this year and some of the findings of the commission may possibly be of great assistance to the proposed Commission of Inquiry into the Companies Act. I want therefore to emphasize the fact that the amendments contained in this Bill now before the House are of a non-contentious nature and that I shall probably come to Parliament in 1965 with a Bill to consolidate and amend the present Act in important respects.

To return to the Bill under discussion, it is my opinion that for the purpose of this discussion it will be sufficient for me merely to mention a few of the most important amendments which will serve as examples. The amendments concerned can actually be discussed more fruitfully at the Committee Stage if hon. members so desire.

At present the Act makes no provision whereby the memorandum of association of a company which is registered in one of the official languages of the country by the Registrar of Companies, can also be registered in the other official language without an involved procedure having to be followed. Amongst other things this involves such a company having to be registered de novo. Clause 9 of the Bill amends Section (1) of the Act in such a way that the memorandum of an association of a company in the other official language can replace the already registered memorandum in the original language by registering it with the Registrar of Companies after the company concerned has adopted a special resolution to this effect. In practice the actions of the company concerned which took place before the substitution of its memorandum of association will be governed by the original registered document, while those actions which take place after the date of substitution will of course be governed by the newly registered memorandum. This amendment is being effected on the recommendation of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut.

In terms of the present Act the Registrar of Companies can approve and register the names of new companies without reference to the Minister of Economic Affairs. If, however, a company already in existence wishes to change its name, the matter has to be referred to the Minister for approval. Apart from the fact that this results in a considerable amount of administrative work and delay, particularly when the Minister is away on official visits, this procedure is illogical. The proposed amendment in Clause 2 of the Bill will now enable the Registrar of Companies to deal with the change in the names of companies as well.

Section 25 of the principal Act provides that all companies must keep registers of their members at their registered offices and that such registers must contain details of the members’ names and addresses, the quantity and numbers of shares held by every member (if it is a company having share capital), the type of shares and the amounts paid on them, the date on which members were enrolled in the register and, in the case of persons who cease to be members, the date of when they ceased to be members. Hon. members will agree with me that a large number of records have to be kept in this regard. The section also provides that the aforementioned register of membership can be kept either by making entries in bound books or by recording the required details in any other way.

The question now arises whether, in the case of persons who have ceased to be members, the provisions of the section will be complied with if the records are kept in the form of microfilms; in other words, whether the words “in any other way” also include such records. Because there has been uncertainty in this regard, it has been decided to insert a clear provision in the appropriate section to the effect that this may be done. Clause 4 of the Bill refers.

This amendment will, particularly in the case of large public companies which experience many changes in their shareholding, contribute towards their requiring far less storage space. This system of keeping records on microfilm is already being applied successfully by the State Archives and the Department of Defence. The Chamber of Mines asked for this amendment and the Accountants’ Board and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries are also in agreement with it.

A further amendment that I may mention here is contained in Clause 8 of the Bill. It amends Section 59 (1) (c) of the Act so that companies which ask for the postponement of the holding of their annual general meetings will have to pay a fee for such concession. The idea is that the payment of a fee will serve to some extent as a counter to requests for the postponement of annual general meetings. My Department feels that this practice must be combated as far as possible because the postponement of meetings also results in considerable delay in the submission of statements to the Registrar of Companies. My Department is already taking administrative steps in this direction within the limits of the existing Act.

It is my opinion that these few examples will give hon. members a reasonably clear idea of the nature of the amendments which are being proposed, and unless I am required to give more details at this stage, a practice which is not actually suited to a second-reading debate, I want to suggest, as I have already said, that during the Committee Stage hon. members ask me for further details regarding those aspects of the Bill in respect of which they require a little more clarity.

Before making a few observations on this Bill, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a question: The commission that he is going to appoint is not going to he a departmental committee?

No, a public commission.

I am very glad to have that assurance from the hon. the Minister, because we have been playing around with this legislation since 1952 when the Millin Commission’s Report was adopted and the Companies Act was amended to a very large extent in 1952. Since then, in 1958, certain suggestions were made by the Handelsinstituut and the Companies Office in regard to certain amendments, and a great deal of time was spent on these proposals in 1958 by commerce and industry, and then in 1960 a Bill was passed which contained certain small amendments of no great import, and in 1962, under the Commonwealth Relations Act there were various further amendments to the Companies Act, and now we have another Bill in 1963 which really only contains a few minor amendments.

Clauses 4,6, 9,10 and 11 deal with certain matters and all are obvious improvements. But all over the world, and in this country too, there have been developments which make it vitally necessary to get on with the job of recasting the Companies Act in order to give further protection to shareholders. I am not asking for tremendous further responsibilities to be put on the shoulders of directors, as I think directors have a very great responsibility under the present Act. There is no shadow of doubt, however, that there are certain other matters that can be brought into the Act which will give greater protection to shareholders under the more and more involved conditions under which we live. In Britain they have had several commissions, as also in America, and all over the world, commissions which have stressed the necessity of protecting minority shareholders, and there are many, many things, other things that should be considered, and in view of the fact that the hon. the Minister has advised us of the appointment of this commission, we support this Bill without any reservations whatever.

Motion put and agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

PROHIBITION OF EXPORT OFOSTRICHES BILL

Eighth Order read: Second reading, —Prohibition of Export of Ostriches Bill.

I move—

Generations before us deemed it advisable to prohibit the export of ostriches from South Africa. As early as 1907 the Parliaments of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal passed legislation in this regard and a year later legislation in this connection was also passed by the Orange Free State.

The Export of Wild Birds Act which was consolidated in 1959 but which was originally passed by the Union Parliament in 1925, only makes provision for the control of the export of wild ostriches. In the meantime, of course, the world has been tamed, and we are faced with the serious defect that that legislation does not apply to tame ostriches and their eggs. All that we now want to do is to give further protection to a very important industry. It is not only a very profitable industry, but also a good industry which is peculiar to South Africa. It is being carried on to-day in a very small part of our country and we want to protect it. For this reason these amendments are actually intended to prohibit the export of tame ostriches and, therefore, all ostriches, and their eggs, unless this is done with ministerial approval.

Perhaps I should just say that we have not, of course, counted the wild ostriches. There are numbers of them in certain parts of our country and in our natural parks, but as far as tame ostriches are concerned, it was estimated in 1955 that there were 56,000 tame ostriches in the country. This ostrich industry is actually limited to the Little Karoo, and last year it earned slightly less than R600,000 in foreign exchange for our country by way of skins and feathers. The industry can possibly be further expanded, and although it is perhaps not quite as stable as one would like to see it, there is still room for development; the industry and the feathers have acquired a fair trading value, so the industry is no longer dependent entirely on women’s fashions. Nevertheless, as an adornment to a woman’s hat or frock, it still adds greatly to her attractiveness, and for that reason I think that this amending Bill merits the support of all sides of the House.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House support this Bill. We quite agree with the Minister that the ostrich industry is particularly valuable to the country and we must not forget the millions of pounds that came into this country when the ostrich feather was used as a special article of fashion. It is possible that it may again come into demand in this respect.

Having been an ostrich farmer, I should like to make a few comments about this Bill. However unique a bird the ostrich may be, it does not seem to me quite proper that an ostrich should be labelled as an egg, because here the reference to “ostrich ’ includes the egg of an ostrich ”. I think there should be some better way of defining an ostrich, instead of calling an ostrich egg an ostrich. However, we on this side raise no objection to the Bill. Then in Clause 4 (2) it reads—

I should like the Minister to give an undertaking that an ostrich, which is a valuable bird, should not if implicated in illegalities be then consigned to the biltong market, even though our principle source of marketable biltong in this country to-day is the ostrich. Perhaps the Minister may give us some assurance in this regard.

I move—

Mr. Speaker, the original Agricultural Pests Act was placed on the Statute Book as early as 1911 and not many amendments have been made to the Act since it was consolidated in 1957. This Agricultural Pests Act has very little to do with the combating of the usual agricultural pests such as wheat lice and insects in our orchards, the normal risks which the farmer always has to take. The actual purpose of the principal Act is to serve as an instrument in the hands of my Department by means of which it can exercise effective control over the possible importation of pests and the spreading of such pests within the Republic of South Africa. Even though some of us may think that we have all the agricultural pests in the world, there are considerable numbers of these pests which occur in other countries and which we do not have here as yet but which may be imported unless we take precautions. The various directions in which control can be exercised and for which the law makes provision are firstly, by means of the registration and inspection of nurseries in the Republic itself; secondly, by means of a prohibition on the importation of certain plants and by means of the inspection at our import harbours of plants whose importation is permitted; thirdly, by the means of the destruction of locusts; fourthly, by placing a prohibition on the importation of bees, honey, used beehives and so forth, and fifthly, by placing a prohibition by way of proclamation on the importation of any specific class of exotic animal, whether vertebrate or invertebrate.

The law advisers have now drawn our attention to the fact that according to the definition of “exotic animals” in the Agricultural Pests Act, read together with the Animal Diseases and Parasites Act, there is some doubt as to whether the Department has the right to prohibit the importation of exotic vertebrate animals; to be able to declare them to be pests and to take certain steps in this regard. In Clause 1 the definition of “exotic animal” is being amended in such a way that the animals which are excluded are specifically mentioned, namely, any “cattle, or any sheep, goat, horse, donkey, mule, pig, ostrich, dog or cat or any poultry”, and to delete the reference in the aforementioned definition to animals as defined in the law relating to diseases of stock. In Clause 2 provision is being made for the Department to have the power to destroy without compensation harmful exotic animals imported illegally as well as their progeny or eggs born or laid here in the country. In Clause 3 provision is made for an official of the Department to be able to enter any premises at any reasonable time to ascertain whether an exotic animal is kept therein or thereon, which is of course an important provision but one which we will never use indiscriminately or injudiciously. A further important point in Clause 3 is that we are making provision for an exotic animal which has been imported lawfully to be destroyed later on payment of compensation if the Minister considers that it is dangerous or harmful or may be harmful in the future. It is virtually impossible to determine in advance the types of animals that people are going to import as pets and to draw up a detailed list of potentially harmful animals in advance. A practical example of this is a little animal called “nutria”, a small type of rodent which lives in water and which eats eggs and water plants, and which some people actually imported as pets. The importation of this animal was not prohibited. Afterwards, however, overseas literature was received in which the warning was issued that nutria which escaped could become a great nuisance in veils, earth dams and canals because they cause leaks in dams and canals, destroy useful plant life and devour the eggs of water birds or other birds nesting near the water. In certain parts of South America and Northern England they have developed into one of the most annoying pests and the authorities there regard this animal as very dangerous. Fortunately we do not have many of them in this country as yet, but because they have been imported lawfully in terms of the Act as it stands, we do not have the power to declare them to be pests and even to exterminate them on payment of compensation. We ascertained that there were four cases where people had these animals in South Africa. We got in touch with them and I want to express my gratitude to the owners of those animals for the fact that once they had been informed of the danger which those animals constituted to our country, they agreed to have them destroyed without compensation. We are making provision here so that if such cases do arise, we shall be able to declare those animals to be pests, even though they have been imported lawfully, but in such cases we will have to pay compensation to the owner or his family for any loss suffered by the owner.

These are the main points contained in the Bill and I hope that we will have the support of the House for this necessary measure.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side accept this Bill and welcome it, and we appreciate the urgency for this amendment to the Agricultural Pests Act.