Mr. Speaker, L should like to make a brief statement in connection with the change in the exchange rate of the rand as against the U.S. dollar that was put into effect last night.

On 21 June of this year I announced that the policy of pegging the exchange rate between the dollar and the rand for long periods of time would be terminated, and that a system of controlled floating would be introduced. That was to mean that the exchange rate was to be adjusted more frequently according to circumstances.

This new policy seeks to prevent the South African economy from being exposed to the consequences of fluctuations in the value of the U.S. dollar that are not related to our own economic situation.

During the past few weeks there has been an upward trend in the value of the U.S. dollar as against most of the other currencies, probably as a result of the relatively strong position of the United States of America in regard to oil, a possible flow of funds from Europe and the Middle East of America, and the solution of the political crisis in the United States of America. The value of the rand rose along with that of the dollar as against other currencies, but the above factors do of course have little to do with South Africa’s economic position.

In these circumstances it was decided to lower the exchange rate of the rand as against the dollar by a small percentage so as to bring the value of the rand more into line with those of the currencies of South Africa’s main trading partners.

Hon. members will understand that from now on more adjustments of this nature, both upward and downward, will probably take place. That is normal policy, and save in exceptional circumstances it will not be necessary for me to issue a special statement in this regard. However, since this is the first adjustment of this nature, I have deemed it fit to inform the House on the matter.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

1. (a) the subject of the Bill; and
2. (b) the subject of the admission of South African non-Whites to premises in respect of which on-consumption licences have been issued under the Liquor Act, 1928, and which are intended for occupation by Whites, and the supply of accommodation, meals, liquor for on-consumption, refreshments and other facilities to such non-Whites on those premises,

be referred to a Select Committee for inquiry and report, the Committee to have power to take evidence and call for papers and to have leave to bring up an amended Bill.

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, in the few minutes available to me last night I pointed out that this debate is basically concerned with the concept of freedom. It is most deeply concerned with the question whether freedom and the exercise of freedom—whether it be religious freedom, academic freedom, political freedom, artistic freedom or freedom in any respect—may be restricted by the State. It is concerned with the question of whether the State may decide that that freedom may be restricted if it has exceeded certain bounds. I pointed out briefly last night that the limits of that freedom are bound up with certain norms and values which in turn are influenced by a certain view of life. Any person who takes account of the tremendous influence which publications and art—I use the terms “publications” and “art” in their widest sense—may have in undermining his view of life, will accept some form of control. This is what is said even by a philosopher, Robert Wolff, a philosopher who may be regarded as fairly left-wing—

In the light of this, this side of the House has repeatedly stated that it identifies itself with the Christian view of life, which means that the limits which are to be set and the norms and guide-lines which are to be used in controlling publications and entertainments, must have a Christian character. That side of the House has failed up to now in any way to identify themselves with or to take a stand on any view of life.

What do you mean by that?

Even the hon. member for Durban Central remembers little of the years he spent at the Potchefstroom University in studying the doctrine of principles and methods.

It is because I remember so much that I object to it so strongly.

It is because they do not want to accept any view of life as a norm for the South African community that they simply want to delegate responsibility to boards, so that the State or the Government need not take up a standpoint in this regard. While the majority report of the commission recommends that control in South Africa be given a Christian character, that certainly does not mean that it is easy to say exactly where the limit must be set or how the individual must be restricted in the exercising of his freedom. It remains a very delicate and sensitive decision in every respect. It also remains a decision and a judgment in which subjective feelings and subjective approaches come into play, but that fact still does not relieve us of the responsibility of taking a decision. The risk that a decision may be wrong, still does not relieve us of the duty of exercising our responsibility and of taking such a decision. In the Heinemann case, too, which has been mentioned here, it was clear that judges in the Supreme Court and in the Appeal Court differed about the norms applied in that case.

The hon. member for Green Point insinuated here yesterday that, as he put it, if I took his words down correctly, all that is of importance for this board is “finding a norm that can be applied by the court”.

“Defining” a norm.

Yes, “defining a norm that can be applied by the court”, but defining a norm is not such a simple matter. A norm cannot be formulated without the subjective and the personal considerations playing a part as well. We cannot just delegate this responsibility to boards and to other individuals.

That is exactly what you are doing.

It is the responsibility of the State. It is that side of the House ...

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, Mr. Speaker, I do not have time to answer a question now. The hon. member had a full hour to make his speech yesterday.

It is because this side of the House accepts that the State cannot evade this responsibility that we want to create the machinery and do not want to delegate this responsibility, as that side of the House wants to do. I think it is precisely on this vital point that we differ from the Opposition. The Opposition believes that the delegation of responsibility in South Africa will lead to more adequate control. According to them the divergence of our community will be better served and the freedom of belief of various groups will be better realized if every group is allowed to decide for itself and if the freedom is left to the individual within that group. They believe that eventually such a divided form of control will, as a whole, produce a fine, harmonious image of control in South Africa. I am afraid that they approach the matter of control in South Africa in the same way as they approach their own party. In that party one group may resign,

another group may GROW, yet another group may lead and another group may do its own thing. Still they believe that on the whole that party creates the impression of being a fine, harmonious whole. It seems to me that a party without effective central authority, control or regulation thinks that we should govern the country in the same way. If we were to do so this country would deteriorate just as that party has done.

The State has this responsibility and it cannot so easily escape it. The function of the State is precisely to evaluate conflicting freedoms in the community and to find the harmonious equilibrium between them. We dare not, for the sake of greater freedom, abdicate this responsibility to groups or to individuals, as the United Party wants us to do. Delegating these responsibilities holds the danger that the freedom which is intended to be promoted in this way may in fact give rise to a lack of freedom. One must always remember that the freedom to decide for oneself, the freedom to act according to one’s own views, as the United Party really wants to do in the final instance by wanting to dele ate the responsibility to others, must be weighed against the freedom of people not to be exposed to the offensive actions of others. Similarly, the way in which people and groups may take decisions in order to exercise and to use their freedom may impose a restriction on my freedom. In modern life, in the modern technological age in which we live, it is no longer a valid argument to advance that if you find pornography offensive, if you do not want to see and hear it, you simply need not look at it or listen to it. In modern society with its mass media and with its sophisticated techniques of dissemination the individual would deliberately be confronted with pornography, if it should be allowed, in the streets, in the literature he takes up and in the advertising material aimed at him, and it is just as much a restriction of my freedom if I am expected to close certain periodicals and to steer clear of certain advertising media and to avoid certain urban areas to give others the opportunity to exercise their individual freedom.

This is what is said by Dorothy Pickles, a person of high standing in political science—

For that reason it is the responsibility of the State to institute a Publications Advisory Board, not only for purposes of co-ordination, but also to define actively the interests of individuals in the community, not only in word, but also in deed. Dorothy Pickles goes further in this connection and defines the responsibility of the State in no uncertain terms. She says—

Then she says very explicitly—

That is what we have said.

She says—

It is the responsibility of the State, not to be delegated, as the United Party wants to do, to interested groups, for them to decide about it for themselves.

You never read the report.

Responsibility cannot be delegated. The United Party’s suggestion ultimately amounts to the delegation of these powers to groups, in order that they may censure and discipline themselves. As I said at the beginning, although the United Party fails to take a stand as far as philosophy of life is concerned, or to take any stand at all in this regard, a dangerous one-sidedness does appear from some of their remarks. In this way we find the following in paragraph 4.2 of the minority report on page 61, under “Conclusions and Recommendations”—

Here the United Party wants to polarize individual freedom against State control as if the State were the embodiment of all unfreedom. Individual freedom, Sir, is here contrasted with State control; the State is the big old spoilsport; according to this statement, State control to them means nothing but the restriction of individual freedom. But this individual freedom does not exist in a vacuum; it is inextricably bound up with the interests of the community, after all, and for that reason it is the responsibility of the State to see to it that every citizen does not only enjoy his freedom, but also accepts his responsibilities. Consequently the State is responsible for deciding what is in the general interests of all its citizens, and for that reason I must warn the United Party that their use of the term “individual liberty”, without qualification, betrays a dangerous approach to life. Of course, individual liberty is of tremendous importance. We on this side of the House, too, have great respect for the rights of the individual and the freedom of the individual. In fact, the concept of freedom has actually attained a particular maturity in this age in which we live, in the sense that many of the restricting measures and taboos of the past have been destroyed. People have indeed come of age and achieved maturity in the age in which we live. But, Mr. Speaker, when this greater freedom for personal expression, for personal fulfilment, is exercised without the necessary responsibility, then individual freedom becomes a very dangerous term. Even Jean-Paul Sartre, the great exponent of individual freedom, stated very clearly within the framework of his existential concept of freedom that he was alarmed by the responsibility imposed upon him by choice, for when he chooses, he says, “I do not choose for myself alone, but for all mankind”. The way in which he makes his choice, the way in which he exercises his freedom, affects the interests of the community in general—and that, after all, is the domair of the State. Mr. Speaker, there are many revolutionaries today who use the slogan of individual freedom as a pretext. They know that the demand for unqualified freedom—unqualified freedom of the individual—may lead to lawlessness and anarchy. Their aim with this slogan of “individual freedom” is to create a revolutionary sub-culture in which the individual, freed of all restrictions, may create a new order. Mr. Speaker, we need not go into this aspect any further. I believe that these dangers will be clearly pointed out in the debate on Friday. We cannot abdicate or delegate the responsibility of the State to set limits and to act as guardian, nor does this side of the House want it to be delegated. That side of the House is suggesting that we on this side of the House are putting this machinery into operation, that we are passing this Act, merely to force the sectional interests of a small group and their attitudes to life down the throats of the majority of people in South Africa. That is the insinuation made by the hon. member for Green Point as well yesterday through his questions. They believe that this Act is only being introduced to force sectional interests, the interests of the small, narrow-minded group of hyper-Afrikaners, down everyone’s throat. The Opposition is trying to discredit this Act in advance. They do not want to give this Act a chance. Mr. Speaker, nothing is further from the truth. The aim of this Act is most certainly not to promote sectional interests. This was clearly spelt out by the Commission in paragraph 16 on page 5 of its report. It says—

So the purpose of the Act is to serve the general interests of everyone in South Africa, the general interests of those people who believe in norms such as decency and propriety. Mr. Speaker, any person, any decent and right-minded person in South Africa who has enjoyed the privilege in recent years of travelling overseas and of visiting cities in Europe and of seeing how all norms of decency have been destroyed in those places over the years, and how hotbeds of pornography have come into being there, will guard against any tendency in South Africa to move in that direction. But now the Opposition will immediately say that they do not want such a corruption of values in this country either.

That is of course an exaggeration of the facts.

Sir, I do not know which places the hon. member visits, but in my experience, and I believe that it will be confirmed by many people, it is simply a tendency in the world that is causing concern to conservative people all over the world today, but because they do not have the machinery to set a check to it ...

You must tell the House which places you visited.

We must remember that today, in a technological age, pornography is not something which happens only in one small corner of the community, or in one small corner of the world. As a result of the mass communication media, pornography has become a commercial giant today, which, through the most colourful advertising techniques, the best management expertise and all the necessary means and dissemination techniques, may eventually reach the most protected child. If the question is put by that side of the House whether we do not want to accept the responsibility of those people who are eventually to decide, according to the minority report, then we reply that our refusal to accept that report is no reflection on those people, but arises only from our fear that the economic laws which have made pornography and sexual matters into a tremendous commercial power, will eventually overcome moral norms, or, as is so often the case in the world, that the spiritual values will eventually be overcome by the material. After all, we are living in a society, in a world, in which no one is perfect. For that reason, this side of the House believes that the idealistic appeals for everyone to exercise self-control within the group in which he fulfils his function do not take account of reality. We ask for a sober, balanced and representative council to guard over these things, so that we may be a happy society in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I should think that the main difference between the attitude of the hon. member for Johannesburg West and others on his side and mine on this Bill comes down to this: that I and my colleagues do not share his fears and his pessimism about allowing people to decide for themselves on issues of right or wrong. I think we place the emphasis on the individual rather than on the State. I do not believe that South Africa and its people will as has been suggested, not by the hon. member who has just sat down but implicitly in a lot of what has been said, be placed in jeopardy unless we censor everything that the public see a dread. I would say that if the “inherente weerbaarheid” of a people can be placed in jeopardy by the absence of such control—and I do not believe that it can. Sir it says very little for the moral fibre of that people. I have more faith and much more confidence in the people of South Africa.

Do you support the minority report or not?

Mr. Speaker, we in the Progressive Party are implacably opposed to the kind of Star-Chamber censorship which is provided for in this Bill. We are opposed to the specially created control machinery which will restrict and inhibit free literary and artistic expression and we are just as critical of the invasion of individual and group rights which is implicit in measure—a whittling away, a dangerous whittling away, of democratic rights. At the same time no reasonable person will ever advocate a pornographic or permissive free-for-all.

Why not?

I shall explain, if the hon. member will have some patience. But to the extent that the State does have an obligation to keep an eye on printed matter, on films which might be offensive and of a corrupting nature, control should be through the ordinary laws of the land and these laws should be interpreted and administered by the courts of the land. We believe that adequate laws are in fact in existence to cope with the real evils which the protagonists of censorship or control have in mind. I use the word “real” because there are multitude of imaginary evils that the protagonists of censorship manage to dream up and discover, when in fact what they often wish is to restrict the freedom of writers and artists and film manufacturers for their own specific reasons. We believe—and this is partly in reply to the hon. member for Johannesburg West—that censorship and here I quote Prof. Leon Hugo of the University of South Africa; “does not put an end to things; it simply drives them underground”; it turns natural, wholesome impulses into things of guilt and shame. On the principle of forbidden fruit it turns natural things into fruits of glamour.

This is what censorship does. Perhaps this is where the difference between the supporters of this Bill and those who oppose it for reasons similar to ours, comes in. We believe that it is neither possible nor necessary nor desirable to try to lay down in statute form hard-and-fast moral norms for an entire community. There is a fundamental clash here between those on the other side of the House and those on this. Standards of behaviour and of taste are decided by the community itself and cannot be fashioned by a body of individuals appointed for this purpose; they cannot be imposed from above. We simply do not believe that if people are free and are left free to read what they want and to see what they wish to see, that they will automatically or inevitably descend into the pit of debasement. We simply do not accept this. We believe that most people behave reasonably when they are left to their own devices. They are not all potential perverts and I believe it to be entirely wrong to treat them as such.

Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, but there the courts will exercise control where this may be found to be necessary. Given a wholesome educational system, given the atmosphere which we ought to create, we believe that the vast majority of people will in the end reject that which is shoddy and will choose the good. Where this does not happen and where the pedlar in filth and pornography—and this does not often happen—persists in exploiting human weaknesses and frailties, the laws of the land are adequate to cope with the situation and to protect society to the extent that it needs protection. People cannot be made moral by laws and committees; they cannot be goaded into morality. Another advantage of leaving it to the courts is that in providing the protecting their wisdom and experience dictate they and we have the assurance that the minimum inroads will be made into personal freedom.

The control mechanisms that are proposed in this Bill. I suggest, constitute a very severe curtailment of the rights of the individual and of the rights of the community—the right to decide for themselves what is good and wholesome, the right of the individual to be read or heard and the right of the individual and the community to read and to see and to decide for themselves what is spurious and what is not. In a sense this Bill, whether it was intended or not I do not know, is an attempt at some form of tough-control. We should realize and be very clear about the fact that the inroads that will be made into individual and group freedom by it will and could affect the whole nature of society and certainly—and this should concern everyone of us in this House—do further damage to South Africa’s image abroad.

Allied to this there is a greater danger, or another parallel danger, in the situation that this Bill is going to create. It is the danger of what I want to call pre-natal censorship. It is a situation in which publishers, writers and other creative people, rather than run the risk of having their work banned, are going to play for safety and censor themselves. This is going to stifle their creative spirit. If I may suggest it, this is the high road to mediocrity and to deadly conformity which surely any self-respecting community would want to avoid. I fear that when the air is filled with the threat of punitive action, which amounts to intimidation, such a situation becomes inevitable.

So much for a general statement on the broad sweep of the Bill and its implications. I would like to repeat that while there must clearly be some procedure or mechanism for viewing films and keeping an eye on what the Bill calls “objects or publications”, decisions as to whether any action should flow from such scrutiny should be left to the ordinary mechanism of justice. The courts alone should decide on what action, if any, should be taken.

Let me quote to the House from a memorandum which was drawn up on this subject by the P.E.N. Centre of South Africa. It is a considered document and I hope it will be helpful to the House in seeing why there is every reason for these issues to be left to the courts. I believe that nothing that has been said in this debate invalidates this contention. The first point is that where the judiciary is accepted as independent, control by the courts is accepted with confidence by the community. This is absolutely vital to the success of a measure of this nature. With the greatest respect, no appointed body can possibly be accepted in the way in which the courts are accepted. The public will always suspect that there is bias on the part of such a body. It is not a question, as the hon. member for Bloemfontein East said yesterday, of passing a vote of no confidence in these people before they have started operating.

It is a simple matter of fact that a body which is appointed by a Minister for this purpose is simply not going to carry that kind of faith. Secondly, judges are not subject to or dismissible by the party in power and are therefore not subject to the temptation to use their power to control in order to muzzle people’s political views, which are contrary to those of the Government, under the guise of safeguarding the welfare and morals of the people. Thirdly, the courts, unlike any arbitrary discretionary body, go out of their way to protect the rights and the liberties of the individual. They do so normally by conducting cases in public in accordance with settled and accepted procedures and rules, by making known to an accused person the charges against him, and by allowing him a full and fair hearing. To allow decisions regarding freedom of expression to be under the control of any other body, particularly a body set up by a Minister, is to abrogate the rule of law, to abrogate the greatest bastion of democratic liberties. One should be very, very careful not to let something like that develop.

This memorandum, in dealing with the problems of defining and interpreting terms such as “undesirable” and “general welfare”, points out that the courts, by their decisions in a series of cases and by their long experience in the training of judges, can build up a series of definitions which are better than any untested or arbitrarily established definitions. The definitions that are arrived at by the courts, through applying general principles embodied in legislation to particular cases, are known to the public. The public know exactly what they can expect, and they can therefore use this as a guide.

Fifthly, the courts, unlike any discretionary body, by building up this corpus of known decisions and definitions by the practice of relying on precedent in the establishment of common law, can give uniformity to their decisions.

The appeal board can do the same.

Not in the same kind of context and not in the same dimension, I suggest. A judge does not require technical expertise. This is the other argument that we hear so frequently, namely, that judges do not have the technical expertise in literary and art criticism. This memorandum points out that judges do not require this, any more than a judge requires expertise in establishing what is indecent. Expert advice is always available to the courts, and the judge is required to recognize and examine the general and suitable principles which apply in particular cases rather than technical details. If technical expertise were necessary, a judge could find it quite easily.

Then there is the point about publicity. The courts need not give undue publicity to indecency; they can sit in camera. That argument about publicity does not hold water. Exclusive jurisdiction by the courts need not mean the free importation of all foreign publications, as has sometimes been suggested. Control by the courts does not mean that a filtering authority such as the customs organization cannot operate on imported material.

Then it is often said that exclusive control by the courts means overworking the courts. But this memorandum points out that if the present customs authority and the Director of Publications, as provided for in this measure, or a similar body, remains as a filtering authority, there is no need for this to happen. Finally, it should not, according to this memorandum, be impossible to devise means whereby cases concerning publications and other materials can be heard quickly. This is the other argument, that it could cause congestion and delay.

So much for the memorandum. If I may just sum up in a few words this aspect of the problem, I would say that what the courts do is not to try to mould of influence public standards of taste and norms of conduct. This is our objection to a body such as is proposed in this measure. The courts accept that these norms and standards are of an evolutionary nature and that they change from time to time. That, I suggest, is why the courts are really the only proper control instrument in a situation of this nature.

I would like to deal very briefly with some specific objections to this Bill. First of all, we object to the measure because we do not believe that it is either possible or desirable to try to define “undesirable”. The concept is a highly subjective one, and obviously differs from individual to individual and from group to group. To define it to everybody’s satisfaction, is “ ’n onbegonne taak”. We might as well stop now. The moment we try to explain what is desirable or not, what is offensive or what is corrupting, we are starting to lay down norms and beginning to dictate to people. We believe it is impossible to embody in statutory form matters of taste and of a literary or artistic nature. I do not think that this is asked for. The danger in this kind of situation is that South Africa will, as it has in years gone by, continue to be denied right to see films which for some reason or other are regarded by the responsible committee (as in this case it will be) as undesirable or “dangerous”, but which the rest of the civilized world accepts and looks upon as routine. I am now not talking about the exceptional cases to which the hon. member for Johannesburg West referred. We know that those things are put up to attract tourists and that they bore the local population to distraction.

Secondly, we oppose this Bill because i will bring into being in the person of the chairman of the Publications Appeal Board somebody who, because of what I regard as awesome powers vested in him, could very easily become the dictator of South Africa’s artistic, literary, moral and political values, a man who will not in any essential manner be responsible to the public or to an outside agency for his actions or decisions. He really will be, in very essential ways, a dictator. He will have powers of decision which may in time very soon show him to be ill-equipped for this task. Who knows that he is going to have these qualities? However, we shall be saddled with him for five years whether we like it or not.

Thirdly, we oppose this Bill because although the decisions of the appeal board can be reviewed by the Supreme Court, only the method of procedure, as was explained on this side of the House yesterday, can be attacked, but not its findings. In other words, the guardianship by the courts of the rights of the individual can hardly be said to exist in such reviews.

Fourthly, we object to making the mere possession of an undesirable publication or object an offence, even though the prohibition, we know, is at the discretion of the committee. After all, possession could so easily be inadvertent, especially when no publication in the sense of dissemination is involved.

Fifthly, the director has power to ban not only what has appeared, but “every subsequent edition” of a publication. This is surely by any kind of standard totally indefensible. It simply means that when this Bill becomes law, it is going to be possible for the agency to close down for all time any publication it wishes. There will be nothing anybody can do about it. You will take away the livelihood of people and there is nothing anybody can do about it. President Kruger tried this in the Transvaal in 1896 when he wanted to ban The Star for three months in advance, but the court told him where to get off, and he got off. We also believe that appellants to the appeal board should have the right to give or adduce evidence as a matter of course. We simply cannot understand why this should be left to the discretion of the board. Surely this is a fundamental right. We also believe that appeal board meetings should be open to the public, i.e., to the Press as a matter of course. If we look at the proceedings of other administrative tribunals such as the Liquor Licencing Board and the Road Transportation Board, we find that they are open to the public. How much more essential is it not that the fresh air of public opinion should be felt here as a salutary safeguard against the abuse of power? We believe that the unrestricted right of entry and search, as the hon. member for Green Point said yesterday, of private or public premises is a completely indefensible invasion of personal rights and liberties. We feel, too, that since provision is made for the expression of opinion by Coloured and Indian people by way of their advisory committees when it comes to matters affecting their own people, provision should also be made for African people. The explanations which we have had so far for not making such provision are sadly unconvincing.

Finally, there is the question of access by academics to published material for study and research, which the minority and majority reports deal with. This material is not available to the ordinary public either because it is being kept out of the country or because the authors are banned. I should like to quote very briefly from the lecture of a Stellenbosch academic, Dr. André du Toit, who warns of the dangers of creating what he calls a structure ...

He added that the majority report of the commission of inquiry gave ...

We in this party believe there should not be any restraint whatsoever on the use and the availability of published material for academic purposes at universities and we believe that this is a matter which should be left to each university itself to decide. Each university should decide what it needs and how it will make use of that material. We believe that this is the only adult approach to a problem of this nature.

For these and for other reasons into which I cannot go now, this party is totally opposed to the Publications Bill, which it regards as a gross infringement of the rights of individual free expression and as a dangerous invasion of the rights of individuals and of the community. Accordingly we shall support the amendment of the hon. member for Green Point.

Mr. Speaker, it certainly takes no prophet to foresee what the standpoint of the “mutual admiration society”, under the leadership of the hon. member for Sea Point, would be in respect of this Bill. With the hon. member for Parktown as spokesman, this “society” said that like the United Party they are also in favour of the individual deciding for himself what he wants to read and what he wants to see. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Parktown, in connection with the policy of qualified franchise which this party has accepted: Who decided what this policy was going to be? Did the people involved have a choice in the establishment of this policy according to which they must comply with certain qualifications to be able, in effect, to vote? Perhaps the hon. member for Sea Point could tell us.

I have never heard such a stupid question.

As far as this matter is concerned, this small group may decide what qualifications should be attached to the franchise, but they blame the Government if it qualifies what may be read, distributed and seen in South Africa.

Every person is constantly engaged in passing judgment. He is engaged in judging whether what comes within his field of view, his field of desire or his field of thought is lovely or ugly, good or bad, right or wrong, beneficial or detrimental, efficient or inefficient, safe or dangerous and desirable or undesirable. He then makes his decision and acts accordingly. With respect to the question of whether there ought to be control over publications and entertainments, and how such control should be implemented, we find the decision of this side of the House embodied in this Bill. I am convinced that the decision of this side of the House, which was reached after very thorough investigation, meets with the approval of the major portion of the people of South Africa.

I want to say that I am very sorry that in the judgment of this very cardinal problem there could not be a greater consensus of opinion between the members of this side of the House and members of that side of the House. During the first phase of the functions of the Select Committee, and later of the Commission, it looked as if there would be consensus and co-operation and that a unanimous report would possibly be published.

We made conditions.

Then a palace revolution broke out in the United Party, inter alia, about the support given by members of that side of the House to a report of the Schlebusch Commission. From that moment on the power of the Schwarz hand—or was it GROW (Get rid of Wiley) or perhaps GROOM (Get rid of Oliver and Malan)—was very clearly discernible in the conduct of the minority members of that Commission. From that moment on it was no longer objective judgment that prevailed, but the directive of the leader of the Transvaal to his chief lieutenant, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, that his decision should be implemented. The United Party members of this Commission had to show the United Party members of the Schlebusch Commission how one should conduct oneself. Even in matters of cardinal importance, such as this, there must be no agreement with the National Party. I want to say here today that in the Commission we received very fine co-operation from the erstwhile hon. member for Kensington, the ex-member for Kensington who is no longer here. We also had very fine co-operation from the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South.

But you did not take their good advice.

But GROOM, the chief lieutenant of which is making such subterranean noises over there, said, using the hon. member for Bezuidenhout as spokesman: You must set an example to the members of the Schlebush Commission.

Do you want to discuss the Schlebusch Commission now?

As everything is subject to judgment, political parties must also be placed on the stage to be judged by the people of South Africa. On 24 April that side also appeared on the stage before the people. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition in the role of Glenda and the hon. Transvaal leader in the role of “Oupa”, the python. As the scene developed, Oupa bit Glenda and the performance was a failure. The people’s judgment of that party on 24 April was very clear and unequivocal. The undesirable elements in the policies and the inefficiency of that party as an Opposition were revealed by the decision of the people. My feeling during the functions of the Commission, as now during this debate, is that there is a very clear difference between the approach of members of this side and members of that side of the House in respect of control. We see the standpoint of the Opposition clearly spelt out on page 61 of the minority report where they state the following:

Are you “happy” about that?

The hon. member asks whether I am “happy” about that. I just want to ask him whether he is “happy” about what is going on in his party.

As against this United Party standpoint, the hon. the Prime Minister, in a radio broadcast on 2 November 1958, also expressed the feeling of this side of the House very clearly when he said the following (translation)—

And the hon. the Minister of the Interior also said the following in a Press report on 7 August 1972 (translation)—

Therefore the United Party, with its exaggerated emphasis on the freedom of the individual, does not agree at all with the machinery incorporated in this Bill because it supposedly detracts from and restricts individual liberties. That is why the United Party writes the following in its minority report on page 61—

According to their report, the Opposition therefore wants to place control of cinematograph films in the hands of the film industry. It wants to place the book industry in the hands of the distributors and publishers; the control of theatrical productions and plays must be placed in the hands of theatre managers. The Opposition therefore wants to place control in the hands of those who have a direct financial interest in the various industries.

What of the courts?

I should like to quote something that was said by a writer, i.e. by an interested party, in whose hands that side of the House wants to place the control. He was asked to give his opinion about censorship. I shall quote from a report in Rapport of 13 May 1973. When Mr. Etienne le Roux was asked what censorship should be like in South Africa, his reply was (translation)—

That is precisely what the United Party and the Progressive Party would like. He goes on to say—

Sir, those are the people in whose hands that party wants to place the control in South Africa. Mr. Speaker, it is surely logical that the writer, the publisher, the distributor and the theatre manager want the best possible financial benefit from what they wish to offer. Are these people not specifically making use of controversial matters to gain greater financial benefit for themselves? Is that not specifically the reason why this Bill is before this House today? I think that Justice J. F. Marais, in his evidence on page 92, summarized the situation very accurately when he said (translation)—

Sir, I should like to quote from a leader in Rapport in connection with the banning of Three Months Gone. I am quoting from Rapport of 29 July 1973 (translation)—

Sir, it is specifically because this play was contentious that it drew full houses. I now want to ask the United Party if they are so naïve as to think that a theatre manager would ban the contentious elements from that play, elements which draw full houses and therefore entail greater financial benefit for him. Mr. Speaker, unlike the United Party, the National Party is not prepared to establish a system of control that serves the interests of certain interest groups. The National Party feels it is its duty to establish a control system which will look after the interests of everyone in South Africa. That is why this side of the House proposes, in this Bill, a control system that can make a contribution towards banning presentations which could pollute the spirit of man and which want to drag the people down to lower moral values and to eliminate those trends that prey upon the weakest characteristics of the people and are employed for personal gain, but at the same time a control system that aims at leaving enough room for those who present entertainment in the form of books, magazines, plays and cinematograph films to come into their own as well. Any control body or bodies established to exclude undesirable publications, entertainments, cinematograph films or public entertainments, must have the utmost confidence of the public. The present system of control no longer has that confidence. Some feel that the system is too clumsy and that effective action cannot be taken. Others are dissatisfied about certain decisions that are given from time to time by the present board. Confidence in the present system was violated because quick and effective action could not be taken and because decisions of the board were not always comprehensible. Here I should like to quote as an example, the question of the banning of Three Months Gone after 30 performances, which were viewed by between 15 000 and 20 000 people, and when there were only three performances left. And now I must say at once that the fuss made by the Press, and also by certain people, did not concern the decision on the principle of whether this show was desirable or undesirable; it concerned the stage at which this show was banned, i.e. after 30 performances and after a crowd of people had seen it. Another example is one where a few hundred thousand issues of a particular magazine were distributed. After 14 days a complaint from the public reached the Publications Board. They took stock of that magazine and decided that it was undesirable and that publication should be prohibited. But at that stage, Sir, the damage was already done. This points out the ineffective facets of the control system we have at the moment. The shortcomings in the present control system have not only violated the confidence in the control system as such, but have also given certain interest-groups and interested persons the opportunity to place the Publications Board in a poor light, to get at members of the Publications Board, and in particular Mr. Jannie Kruger, and to create public mistrust of the board and of the control over publications and entertainments. I have here an example of how these people, by means of a situation such as the banning of Three Months Gone, which possibly took place as a result of an ineffective provision in the existing Act, got at the Publications Board in order to put control in South Africa in a poor light. I want to quote from the Daily News of 16.8.1973—

I shall also quote from Rapport (translation)—

That was also as a result of the banning of Three Months Gone, where the Publications Board could not take quick and effective action within the framework of the existing control system.

And yesterday the hon. member for Durban Central referred to these people, who will be empowered by the Minister to enter a place where they suspect there are undesirable publications, the persons mentioned in clause 17, as “super snoopers”. I think this is a term already being employed by the hon. member to cast suspicion on the people who are being placed in a position to effectively help exercise control in South Africa, and make them appear ridiculous to the public, thereby discrediting control in South Africa.

Sir, as a result of the incidents I have just dealt with, the Publications Board, which has also done brilliant and much appreciated work, has in the majority of cases had to put up with ingratitude for their actions, actions prescribed in terms of the present control system. I am grateful that the commission was able to find that the criticism of the personal competence of members of the Publications Board was unfounded. I also think it is necessary today for us to express thanks and appreciation to Mr. Jannie Kruger and the present Publications Board for the brilliant work they have done in the interests of South Africa. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have had the privilege to see what these people have been dealing with from day to day. The United Party and the public Press have kicked up a great fuss about a few mistakes these people have supposedly made. But they have not said a word about thousands of contaminatory cinematograph films, books and documents that were brought into our country and could have softened up our people to its very core. I believe that the control system embodied in this measure will inspire confidence in all those people who are in earnest about the control of publications and entertainments. Adequate provision has been made for protecting the interests of people who are involved financially or otherwise, but adequate provision has also been made to exclude undesirable elements from our national life. This system, Mr. Speaker, is simple, practical and comprehensible to everyone. It can function independently of outside influences and pressure groups. This new control system can function quickly and efficiently. Reasons for actions and decisions can be furnished. A larger group of the people can itself decide what it is desirable or undesirable to make available in South Africa. I think this system eliminates the possibility of people, who are not in earnest about the control of publications and entertainments, singling out a person or persons to use as a scapegoat, thereby to ridicule the control system in South Africa. Here we now have a control system in which the decision-making function, the administrative function and the appeal function can take place independently of each other through separate bodies. Each of the three control bodies will consist of individuals amongst our people who are well-grounded and equipped for the implementation of their task. We have committees which will be entrusted with the decision-making functions, which will pass judgment on publications, cinematograph films and public entertainments. They will give a decision and furnish reasons why a particular decision has been taken. A directorate will control the administration of the measure and its quick and efficient administration which will help to review and, if necessary, amend incorrect and irrational decisions. And a person who feels himself to have been wronged, can go to the Appeal Board where his case can be heard. I do not want to go into that, because some of my hon. colleagues know much more about this matter and will probably examine it in greater depth.

The hon. member for Green Point suggested yesterday that the use of a large number of committees would be functionally impractical. The hon. member for Durban Central raised similar objections here in so far as the use of persons, for which provision is being made in clause 17, could entail a great deal of additional work for the committees and delay the functions of the Directorate. Since they state that the new system, incorporated in the Bill, is impractical, I should like to ask if they know how the existing control system works. They do prefer, do they not, the existing control system to the control system being proposed here by the hon. the Minister? The present board fulfils an administrative and decision-making function. It is the task of the present Publications Board, which according to them is much more practical, to constitute a committee which will give its opinion on a cinematograph film. Arrangements must be made for that committee to view the cinematograph film and furnish a subsequent decision, which is then published in the Gazette. When there are appeals, that administrative work must also be done. When the present board gets to its decision-making function, we therefore already have the committee system which the hon. member for Green Point and the hon. member for Durban Central hit out at. We therefore already have the present committee system, but at the moment the function of the committees is solely that of expressing an opinion. When the committee meets to view a cinematograph film, a member of the Publications Board is present. He acts as chairman of the committee. When they have finished, they hold a discussion and an opinion has to be expressed. The chairman makes notes. That afternoon the Publications Board meets and the chairman conveys to the board the opinion of the committee members and describes the cinematograph film. The board, in which only one member has seen the film, then gives a decision. I do not think the objections of the hon. members for Green Point and Durban Central hold any water at all, because in terms of the present control system use is in fact being made of committees. The only thing that is being incorporated into this new system is that these committees are really being allocated a function. Since they must take the trouble to see a film, read a book or examine some other publication or object, they are now being entrusted with the right to decide immediately afterwards whether that article is desirable or undesirable. They then make known their decision, with their reasons, to the Directorate which then announces the further administrative arrangements.

We have heard a great deal about hon. members on that side of the House coming along with ideas, for example that every person in South Africa should decide for himself what he wants to read and what he does not want to read. However, we are grateful that the Government has taken the initiative and that we are getting a control system here to eliminate, or to a large extent to remove, the things that are being brought into our country, and those being produced here, which can destroy the morals and morale of our people. We are grateful that a control structure is now being incorporated into this measure such that we shall be in a position to take action against these things which are dirty and have a polluting effect on our national life.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Kuruman has really got a hang-up about all the commissions on which he and others have sat with members of this side of the House. He is under the impression that everything was going on very well in this commission and he thought that they were going to get complete unanimity but suddenly the United Party members produced a minority report. I was not a member of this commission. But when you consider what in fact the majority report is and what the Bill is that is here being debated it is clear that the hon. member should have done his homework before he made such a statement. As long ago as 1969, when the then hon. Minister of the Interior at a Cape Nationalist congress expressed the thought that the appeal to the courts in terms of the Publications Act should be removed, he was met by an immediate barrage of objections from United Party speakers. I remember it well, because I was one of the members who objected to it. That is fundamental to the United Party’s thinking. It has always been fundamental and the United Party could never have been expected to be a party to anything in the nature of this Bill which removes the right of appeal to the Supreme Court.

Out-Progging the Progs!

It is not a case of “Out-progging the Progs”. That has always been our point of view. The hon. the Minister knows it. This hon. gentleman has also been caught up in this name game, talking about GROOM. I do not know what that has to do with the Bill, but I must say—and not because it sounds like another word in the English language which might well describe what I think of the hon. member’s speech—that perhaps he ought to call this GROFITI: “Get rid of individual freedom totally, immediately.”

The hon. gentleman felt it was necessary to thank Jannie Kruger for all the work that he had done. Well, Sir, I must say they thought so much of what the Publications Board had done that they decided to scrap it in terms of this Bill, and decided to institute something quite different. I ask the hon. gentleman whether he has ever looked at the judgments which have been given in respect of some of the extraordinary findings of the Jannie Kruger board. If he had, he would have found that there is a succession—and I will deal with it—of judgments of the Supreme Court, not just saying, “We think something different”, but saying in effect: “You misconstrued your powers. You do not understand what the legislature wanted. How could you possibly have come to a conclusion like this? What kind of people are you anyway that can think like this?” So one could continue. If the hon. gentleman feels that he has no confidence in the judgments of the courts, then let him say so. But, Sir, let us not pretend that Jannie Kruger and his merry men did anything like a good job, either in respect of our own internal publications, or, especially, in respect of our image in the outside world.

The hon. the Minister introduced this Bill here, and said that there was a proliferation of pornography and subversive literature and all sorts of things.

Do you deny that?

Just let me finish. It does not matter whether I deny it or not. I do not know. I live in South Africa. I am not in a position to know whether there is a proliferation of these things or whether there is not. But, Sir, my point is that the hon. the Minister said that because there is a proliferation of these things, we therefore have to take some new steps in order to deal with it.

You do not want any steps to be taken.

Of course you must do something about subversive literature and pornography, but that is not the point. The hon. the Minister says that because of that proliferation, we have to have this Bill. Now, Sir, that is a non sequitur. If there is pornography and subversive literature, you must deal with it in terms of the powers you have. Goodness knows, we have enough laws in this country and enough powers are provided to deal with it. But what the hon. the Minister is in effect saying is that, because there is a proliferation of these things, he is going to take the step of introducing this Bill and taking away the right of appeal to the courts. What he is saying in fact is an insult to the courts. He is saying that he wants to remove the judges’ discretion because they would not help in keeping down the proliferation of pornography and subversive literature.

I never said so. Try to prove that.

Of course the hon. the Minister did not say so. I am telling him that that is the effect of what he says.

You are a mind-reader now.

Did he not mean that?

No, of course not.

Well, then he was really trifling with the intelligence of this House. If he says that because there is a proliferation of pornography and subversive literature, you have to get rid of the right of appeal to a judge in respect of pornography and subversive literature, he is really trifling with the intelligence of members of this House. Nobody wants permissiveness in the sense in which one sees it in other countries; but we do want to make up our own minds as to what we should read and what we should not. Surely, Sir, you can have a balance between these two extremes, one which upholds and protects the very society we belong to, and yet admits ideas and thoughts which are stimulating to one’s thought processes.

They are sick, indeed slowly dying, minds which do not like and want challenges or controversies. When you remove those challenges and those stimulations and you ban without the public or its representatives being in any way able to test opinion with the catalyst which is in fact such challenge, you begin the process of atrophy in the world we are living in today; atrophy of the mind, atrophy of the attitude and an inability to cope with the modern world. We are not just dealing with whether or not you should read pornography. That is the very least that this Bill has to deal with. We have laws that deal with pornography at the very moment and there is no one who would say that they should not be there. We are dealing here with the very soul of South Africa and I must say that, in dealing with any measure like this which gives a Minister of this Government the power to appoint boards that have the complete say and have arbitrary powers in respect of anything of this nature, I find it very hard to look at it without being deeply suspicious of what is going to happen if it is passed. I want to remind hon. gentlemen of what is happening with another independent board which is set up by this Government, the South African Broadcasting Corporation. If ever one were to see a one-sided attempt at mind-bending in a vacuum of the sort of thoughts which they have, that is it. I do not find it possible either to divorce my line of approach from the remark made by Dr. Treurnicht—no, I am sorry, Dr. Meyer, the other smaller “hood”—when he spoke about what we could expect in respect of television when it comes here.

What has that got to do with the Bill?

It has everything to do with this Bill, because this Bill is setting up another body which is appointed by this Government ...

So what?

... which can be dismissed by this Government and which will have certain thoughts which will be, I believe, like all the other thoughts Government bodies have had.

I want to go further. I want to say that I have no confidence that any board which will be set up in terms of this Act...

We did not expect you to have it.

We have no confidence that such a board will in fact have any appreciation of the English-speaking person’s heritage, his thoughts and cultural activity. [Interjections.] I think hon. gentlemen have forgotten that a very well known classic English book about a horse called “Black Beauty” was banned by one of these bodies.

It was not.

Of course it was.

One can perhaps appreciate why. I do not want to be personal, but I do want to say that if powers like these are to reside in the hands of that hon. Minister, I have no confidence either as to what kind of board he will appoint and what kind of thoughts he will expect from them. This is a gentleman who admitted in the No-confidence Debate earlier last week, when he was challenged on this, that no child ever passed through his hands when he was a teacher, without ending up a devoted Nationalist. This is what one gets from the heir apparent of the Nationalist Party, or is it the heir presumptive? Perhaps it is the heir presumptive. [Interjections.] This legislation brings South Africa on to the brink of a kind of terrorist attack by the Government on the intellectual fibre of the people of South Africa without any restraint by the courts or even without any restraint by this House. It opens the way to the kind of book-burnings that occurred in Nazi Germany in the ’thirties. It is the approach ...

What has happened to your patriotism? You talk of Nazi Germany.

My patriotism is second to nobody’s. It is because of that patriotism that I am saying what I am saying in this House on this Bill.

Will you use another example too?

When you get a state of affairs such as this developing and you bear in mind what it is symptomatic of, when you start removing the courts and you have the tendentious reasoning of the hon. the Minister in introducing this measure, you must be careful that you do not in fact get on to that path.

One is upset about what is going to happen. Let us look at what has happened in the past. What the Publications Board has tried to do is to put protective blinkers on the people for ideological, religious or other reasons. It was no doubt well-meant, but in the end it amounts to a form of brainwashing. Committees with arbitrary powers such as these should not be the arbiters of ethics or of public morality, especially when there is no surveillance over their activities. Public opinion, which is the opinion of the people represented in this House by us all, should in fact be the final judge of this. Without information, without being aware of what is happening, they are not in a position to form any judgment, not even a balanced opinion.

What in essence is happening here? Essentially there is the removal of the appeal to the courts. I want to say that there is much more involved in this than merely saying that a judge cannot substitute his opinion for that of the Publications Board or of the committees in terms of this Bill. Mr. Justice Fannin, giving judgment in one of these cases in 1971, said—

He said he gained the impression that—

He said it was the publication or object which must be examined and not merely the subject matter, since otherwise no one could mention adultery, contraception or a hundred other matters for fear of offending the members of some religious body or other. Then he said—

What he is saying there and what other judges have said, is that if you remove the power of appeal to the courts, you remove the constitutional protection given to citizens and to society itself by the intervention and the interpretation by the courts of the words which appear in this Bill which we here are passing. This is nothing more nor less than part of a pattern of this Government of stripping the courts of their constitutional function to intervene on behalf of the citizen against the arbitrary and even unlawful behaviour of the authorities. It is the function of judges to see that Acts of Parliament are properly interpreted and applied; it is their duty to maintain a balance between the arbitrary actions of officials and the rights of the public. That is their constitutional function. It is not just a question of saying that a judge cannot give a better decision on the facts than a board can.

What is the value of review?

I will deal with that. That hon. gentleman should not talk about matters of this nature after his record and his performance in this House. The board is no substitute for a court of law. A court of law is comprised of independent persons who cannot be removed by anyone at all. They are independent; that is why they are there.

Appointed by whom?

They are appointed by the Government, by the State President.

Of course they are appointed by the Government. What is the difference?

That is not the point. They cannot be removed. Once they are there they are absolutely independent and they can only be removed by resolution of both Houses of Parliament. Surely th hon. the Minister of Justice knows that?

I know that very well.

Then what point is the hon. the Minister trying to make? But compare this, Sir, with the members of these boards. The directorate is going to be appointed by the hon. the Minister and the committees are going to be appointed by the directorate from names which the hon. the Minister has put forward. They can therefore be removed and they will no doubt be removed if they do not do what the hon. the Minister wants them to do. They are dependent upon ministerial favour.

The hon. member for Johannesburg West said that a norm cannot be formulated without personal and subjective influence. Who then should do this? Who should in fact establish that norm?

I did not say a norm was subjective.

You said that it could not be formulated without personal and subjective influence.

You can make a judgment according to a norm.

Yes, but if there is to be a judgment according to a norm then who is best able to give that judgment? Is it the appointees of the Government who depend on Government favour and who are doing this in a darkroom, or an independent judge who is doing this under the public gaze? The existence of a right of appeal is the best possible deterrent to arbitrary action. They go much further here. They actually clothe this appeal board with the trappings of a court. They say it is not a court, that it is purely administrative. I think that the hon. the Minister said that it would have “bloot administratiewe funksies”. It is an administrative body but in the Bill provision is made for some extraordinary protection for this body and its members. One may not insult, disparage or belittle any of these people or anticipate their findings.

The appeal board.

The Bill provides that nothing must be done in relation to the appeal board which, if done in relation to a court of law, would constitute contempt of court. This is really going very far. It is very hard to understand what the hon. the Minister is aiming at in this regard. If this were to be a court, then I would agree, but what is it? Courts are independent bodies which are not controlled by anyone. It is because of that independence that that provision of immunity from such things is given to it. These are administrative bodies and so they need to be controlled and, if necessary, criticized. Someone needs to have to answer for their actions. Having abandoned control by the courts, having abandoned control by Parliament, we have the situation where the hon. the Minister is seeking to protect them even from the right of protest and criticism on the part of ordinary citizens. The hon. member talks about the right of review by a court. I want to say that the hon. member for Wynberg gave a very succinct and excellent explanation yesterday of this whole matter and I recommend his Hansard to that hon. gentleman. If he reads that Hansard he will discover the difference between an appeal and a review.

I want your remarks in relation to the Bill.

I want to say that the right of review is being given here in this Bill. Thank you very much, Sir, for that! There is the right of review under the common law in any case. This is a big deal! We are being given the right of review here which we have in any case under the common law. In any event, in some respects, this right of review given here restricts the normal common right of review because it restricts the court in substituting a different finding to only those cases where the board has acted mala fide. Under the common law, Sir, the court has the inherent right to substitute a finding on grounds other than just mala fides. Does the hon. member agree with that?

Yes.

Well, there you are. We have agreed now that there is a restriction even on your common law right of review, not on the facts or the merits, your right of review exists only in certain prescribed circumstances where either they acted mala fide or did not apply the rules properly, or in the circumstances set out by the hon. member for Wynberg. Sir, the experience of the last few years and the decisions of the courts have undoubtedly shown that the Publications Board—and we can expect this from these other boards—has not properly applied the laws passed by Parliament and that the members of the board have not applied their minds properly to what Parliament decided should happen. Sir, with that background you now proceed to go into exactly the same state of affairs, except that this time it is worse; there is nobody now to see whether or not they do act properly and whether or not they do apply their minds properly. My reply therefore is this to all the arguments raised by the hon. gentlemen over there about some judges having said that in fact this was not really the kind of decision that they were used to giving or wanted to give although they nevertheless gave it: neither the Chief Justice who was mentioned, nor any other judge, said, or will say, that the Acts of this Parliament should be applied in accordance with someone’s opinion of what the law is, or some arbitrary application of it. In fact, what it amounts to is this: If you take away the courts, you will take away what in fact is the thing that you are trying to prohibit and it will then be just a pure opinion by someone who is not qualified even to interpret the Statute. Why do you have any definitions in this Act at all. Sir? Why does the hon. the Minister bother to put definitions in the Act unless you have persons qualified to interpret and apply those definitions? That, Sir, is the court’s constitutional function; it is the oil which makes a rigid constitution like ours work. Parliament must lay down what the law is; Parliament should lay down the law and then the court should interpret the law and apply the norms laid down by Parliament in the myriad circumstances which arise, and if Parliament finds in fact that this is not working out or that the interpretation given by the courts is not what Parliament intended, then the proper course is to come back to Parliament and to change those norms and to change the directives. Sir, you might just as well have a Bill here which says, as this Bill in effect says, that in future anything can be barred which in the opinion of persons appointed by the Minister, people whom he can hire and fire, is undesirable. Sir, that is the effect of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, my time is up. I want to say this to the hon. the Minister. He is upset—and I put it to him frankly—because the judges in the past have not thought in the way he would like them to think about publications and the morals of the country and he cannot do anything about it, but he is confident that the board he is going to set up under this measure will in fact do what he thinks they should do. Let us not bluff ourselves any more; let the hon. the Minister not try to bluff the House that because there is a proliferation of pornography and so on we have to have this Bill. That is not the purpose of this Bill, Sir. The purpose of this Bill is very simple. It is to prevent the legitimate interference of the courts in interpreting what Parliament wants, because he, the hon. the Minister, and the Government want to control the minds of people in South Africa without let or hindrance from any legitimate body which puts any legitimate curb upon those aspirations.

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that, when it comes to legal matters, the chief spokesman of the Opposition completely ignores the judgment given by our present Chief Justice, who was Judge of Appeal at the time a judgment in which Mr. Justice Rumpff stated that these matters did not belong in a court of law. One would at least have expected him, to try to distinguish between these judgments, as he is used to doing in court, and indicate just why this judgment is not valid for the purposes of his argument. But the hon. member ignores the facts because they do not fit in with his argument that we are introducing this measure—and this is what everything he says amounts to—in order to abolish the appeal to the courts. His argument, if one analyses it in depth, is that we want to evade problems created for us by the courts, and that is why we drafted, in a very roundabout way, by way of two commissions of inquiry, an entirely new Bill with an entirely new system, purely for the purpose of taking the question of control out of the hands of the courts. During the course of my speech I shall motivate the standpoint of this side of the House in detail, explaining why the right of appeal to the courts has been removed.

By way of introduction I should like to add that the hon. member also failed to study our report very closely. After all, we clearly stated in it that we realized that the present system had lost the confidence of the public and that that was the reason why the inquiry was being instituted. Because we are dealing with an important matter we want a system which has the built-in fairness and justness that will restore and ensure the confidence of the public. This Bill is before Parliament for that reason, and not for all sorts of negative purposes. But the hon. member, and all the other members who have spoken so far included—also the hon. member of the Progressive Party—are trying to create an image of a National Party which seeks to obtain a hold on cultural life, which seeks to exercise sole control, to prepare a snare for catching all who do not share its views, and seeks to control the thoughts of the entire South Africa like the driver of a waggon handling a team of horses.

Well said.

They are trying to create an image of a government which has a reckless contempt for the freedoms and rights of the individual and wants to promote bureaucracy in an arbitrary manner and oppress the voters, so that they will vote for them again in five years’ time! They are trying to paint a sombre picture of a kind of growing tendency towards a police state and of a Government which now wants to sink its claws into the realms of art and culture as well. As against that they are trying to propagate an image of the United Party as being the staunch defenders of the public against this sombre, old-fashioned and narrow-minded Government. In this process this Bill is then being held up as a piece of regressive legislation, negative legislation which makes publications control more absolute, more drastic and which places publications control in a grip which will be total, and which will operate unfairly in the future and place control in the grip of the ideology of the National Party. But, Sir, what is the true position when one studies this Bill properly?

I shall try to indicate that this is a positive Bill, that it broadens our system of control, that in fact it can inspire a great deal of peace of mind in all concerned in the matter, that it is fair and just and will operate in that manner. In reviewing the Bill, we see numerous positive elements which were not present in the old Act, positive elements which the Opposition did not pay any attention to. We see committees which will be constituted in consultation with cultural bodies, competent committees, judgments by the people themselves in a certain sense of the word, as was also said by the hon. the Minister. We see committees which, unlike the position in the past, must give reasons for their decisions and must therefore take a motivated decision, reasons which will be made available to those persons whose work is banned. Unlike the position in the old Act, and especially as regards films, we no longer see a board which takes decisions on a film which it has not viewed itself or which it has only heard of, but a committee which duly examines what is placed before it, and which, having completed the examination, thoroughly deliberates on the matter and then produces a motivated decision. We find in the Bill Coloured and Indian advisory committees whose advice must be followed when they are consulted. We see in the Bill a logification of the age restrictions concerning films, which have given rise to many problems in practice. We see in the Bill the elimination of illogical action through the granting of the right of initiative as well as the right of appeal to the directorate. We therefore have a counterbalance in case a committee should get out of hand, in whichever direction—i.e. by prohibiting too strictly or passing things too leniently. In such an instance the directorate will be able to say that it is referring the matter to a more competent body, the appeal board, for decision. The committees are therefore not able to act arbitrarily by doing just as they please; they are subject to appeal by the interested parties and appeal by the directorate itself. We see in this Bill the threefold control structure which introduces a division of power, which will eliminate bureaucracy and the domination of one section by another and of one person by another. We see in this Bill that film appeals are being extended and that they are also getting an appeal body to which they can appeal.

I concede that this Bill is stricter in certain areas. There is the question of possession which has been mentioned in this sense that if there is a special decision that a book or document or film goes too far, the possession thereof will constitute an offence. This is an extension of power which is stricter and which was not embodied in the existing Act. There is also the question of those films which are kept in the custody of the directorate until they have been examined. This, too, is a stricter provision than was formerly the case. However, these stricter provisions are not entirely unfounded. Did the hon. member read the evidence which was given by the Police before the commission? If so, he will understand what has given rise to these provisions.

I want to argue that as a whole this Bill introduces a better balanced and a more effective system than the one which has been in existence up to the present. I want to attest that this commission went out of its way for the very purpose of making this system a balanced one, a fair one, and of setting at ease the minds of all parties who will be concerned in this matter with the assurance that they are getting a system which will operate fairly and justly.

However, now the Opposition will say, and the hon. member for Durban North has already asked this question: Yes, but what about the appeal? The appeal to the courts has been abolished, and now everything is in the hands of the Minister; in actual fact, the Minister now controls the entire question of publications control. I shall try to show that the appeal board, too, is a positive development, an improvement on the previous system. The previous system was instituted because it appeared to be good and right in the light of what was available to Parliament at that time. However, since then a long time has passed. We have gained experience, and the experience we have gained has taught us that we must adapt our entire system. As an offshoot of this full inquiry the question of appeal also came up for close scrutiny.

I should like to name five basic reasons why also the abolition of the right of appeal to the courts and the establishment of an appeal board constitute a positive development in our system of law. The first reason is that the appeal board will be accessible to many more interested parties than was the case with the courts, During the years 1970, 1971 and 1972, 4 462 publications and/or objects were considered by the Publications Board, 2 473 of which were prohibited. Against these 2 473 prohibitions there were only 29 appeals. That is what the argument is about—29 appeals out of 2 473 prohibitions over a period of three years. A mere 1,1% of the prohibitions went to court. Why? Probably not because the Publications Board did not make mistakes, because we have in fact been hearing throughout the entire debate how bad they are. Surely there must be a valid and practical reason for this. I can only think of one, i.e. that the cost of appealing to the courts is too high in proportion to the disadvantage which arises from the prohibition of a publication.

As against this, the appeal board we are going to establish now will be more accessible to a greater number of interested parties because its procedure is more flexible and because a person who raises objections, an appellant, will, under this flexible procedure, no longer have to rely on legal representation if he does not want to. He is entitled to it, but now he no longer has to go to a forbidden court which is only peopled by advocates with long gowns. Now he is going to an appeal board where he can outline his objections round a table. Everyone who is in legal practice will admit that it is unwise for any individual to appear in a supreme court without any legal representation. Everyone who is in legal practice will tell you that it is common practice for an individual who has a good grounding in his subject to appear in his own behalf before an administrative body. The first point, therefore, is that there will henceforward be more accessibility. We will now have more appeals and more decisions are now going to be put to the test. Therefore, there will be fewer cases of injustices being done by committees than was the case in the past.

The second reason is that the establishment of an appeal board safeguards our courts against involvement in polemics. Mr. Justice Snyman said the following in the case of S.A. Magazine v. the Publications Control Board, 1966, and I should be glad if the hon. member who thinks that we are against the courts and that only he is in favour of the courts, would listen to this:

We on this side share the respect which everyone has for the courts. Through the years a proud record has been built up in South Africa of independent, venerable and competent judges on a good, sound Bench. This is a record which must be upheld in South Africa at all costs. Therefore, if the court itself, by the mouth of Mr. Justice Rumpff, says that this question of control does not belong with them ...

But all of that appears in the report.

It is stated there, but the hon. member has not read it. If the court itself, by the mouth of Mr. Justice Snyman, points out the danger of involvement in public debate, why then should we implicate this symbol of justice, our courts, by leaving the question of appeal with them, while they maintain that they do not want it, that it is dangerous to their image and, what is more, does not belong with them because it is administrative-judicial? The commission perceived that there was a risk that our courts might become implicated and that there was a serious risk that the public would begin to regard the court as a permissive institution tending, against the national interest, to release harmful publications for distribution. The United Party itself states in its report that the Afrikaans churches stated in evidence that the appeal should be abolished because they had observed the tendency that there was a feeling that the courts obstructed the functioning of the Publications Board ...

They wanted a special court under a judge.

Far be it from me or from this side of the House to suggest that the court is permissive. I want to state unequivocally that we on this side of the House do not for one single moment, and we spelt this out clearly, have any doubts about the competence of the court to pass judgment. That is clear from our report. But if the hon. member for Durban North is really so concerned about our courts and really has a high regard for them, he would have tackled his speech differently. He would not have made the courts a political football in this debate. He would not have mistrusted and tried to throw suspicion on our confidence in and high regard for the courts. He would have kept the debate on a level in accordance with the fact that every right-minded person in South Africa has respect for the courts. He would have expected us to be more intelligent than to affront the Bench. But what this hon. member is doing is to pretend that the courts in South Africa are an ally of the U.P. in the struggle against domination by the mighty National Party which wants to trample upon the rights of the individual. To hint at such an alliance, is indeed an insult to the courts. If we should allow the appeal to the courts to remain in force, there is a real danger that we will discredit the public image of the courts, and this Government is not prepared to let that happen.

In the third place, the appeal board enjoys the same advantages as does a court. Firstly, it has a chairman who is appointed by the State President and must be a jurist, a jurist who may either be a judge, as was so clearly pointed out to hon. members yesterday, or a potential judge, who according to the U.P., when he becomes chairman, suddenly becomes an instrument in the hands of this Minister. That is what they think of jurists. We should make a mental note of this.

In the second place, this appeal board is going to be independent. It is appointed for a five-year period on fixed basis. It is vested with the highest authority and has the final say as regards publications control. It is appointed by the State President and not merely by the Minister. In the third place, this appeal board has the right to hear the parties concerned. The parties concerned can therefore argue before this appeal board as they would argue in a court. Minutes are also kept of the proceedings of this “court”, and each judgment must appear in writing, full reasons being furnished. In suitable cases it will also be open to the public. These will be the essential features of the appeal board. These are also the essential features of a court of law. In saying this, I am not relying on my own opinion, nor on the opinions of members on that side of the House; I am relying on the opinion of a senior advocate who gave evidence before us and who was opposed to the abolition of appeal. I am taking his definition of the essential features of a court. He said—

I am telling you what my definition of a court is: ...

Where are you quoting from?

I will give you the reference now—

I am quoting from the evidence of Advocate G. Gordon on page 193. Sir, basically this appeal board has all the essential features of a court, but—and this brings me to my next point—it is not a court ...

That is correct. That is the point.

... because it is not supposed to be a court. I shall now tell the hon. member why this is so. The establishment of an appeal board is, in the fourth place, a healthy development in our system of law. According to jurisprudence, as Mr. Justice Rumpff rightly said, publications control belongs with an administrative body and not with a court of law. He adopted that standpoint and it was quoted. With further reference to this I now want to tell you that the establishment of an appeal board will render a positive contribution towards the formation of an effective system of administrative law, founded on principles, as a full-fledged branch of our system of law and jurisprudence. I shall now tell the hon. member for Jeppe why it does not belong with a court.

The function of the executive authority, the governing authority, is inter alia to exercise discretion; it can either do so itself, or it can have it done by an administrative body. Coupled to this is the fact that the maintenance of law and order, also by means of prevention (that is the aim of this legislation), is an executive administrative function. Because this is the case, there evolved in Europe—and now hon. members must tell me why it happened in Europe—in France, to be specific, the Droit administratif. The rest of Europe also has a clearly recognizable system of administrative law. A clear distinction was drawn there between the province of the executive authority, which acts through administrative bodies in respect of quasi-judicial functions, and the province of the Bench, which has juridical and not executive administrative functions. In this dispensation, which is the modern development towards the refinement of administrative law, it is good law for the Government, where it thinks fit, to say that it wants to have an administrative body to assist it as an executive authority.

In that dispensation it is good law to appoint, establish and develop tribunals. In this regard, too, I am not relying on my own opinion and am not holding myself up as an expert. I do not know whether the hon. members opposite know who Prof. M. Wiechers is. If they do not know, I can tell them that he is the exponent and the authority in the field of administrative law in South Africa. Listen to what he has to say about this. With regard to publications control he pleaded back in 1966 for (translation)—

In this connection he argued (translation)—

He is supported by Prof. J. D. van der Vyver, the dean of the faculty of law at the University of Potchefstroom. For the information of hon. members on that side, I want to say that this is the very Prof. van der Vyver whom the Sunday Times praised so highly for having criticized the Government in his recent doctor’s thesis for the very reason that the Government, in his opinion, retained too much authority in its own hands and delegated too little to the courts. This very man whose critical attitude is founded on the same legal grounds on which hon. members opposite have based their argument, pleads for an administrative appeal body (translation)—

He referred to the Publications Board—

He went on to say—

He advocates exactly what we are doing here. The person I have quoted here is a legal philosopher and not a party-politician. He is not a person who wants to conceal something or hide behind fig-leaves. With the establishment of this board an important development is taking place from a legal point of view, a positive development which we ought to applaud and which lawyers on that side ought not to dismiss as being a base political deed. After all, we must also take cognizance of the fact that this Bill does not exclude review by the courts. It was dealt with very effectively yesterday, and at this stage I do not want to tell hon. members what review is, but I want to tell hon. members that a senior advocate who gave evidence before us said that the recent cases which were on appeal and caused such a sensation in the Press—and in which he appeared in most instances—would, on being reviewed, practically all be decided against the Publications Board.

In other words, these cases which were quoted by the hon. member for Durban North-could also succeed on being reviewed. We have this from the lips of the advocate who won these appeals, Adv. Anton Mostert.

Mr. Speaker, may I put a question to the hon. member?

Mr. Speaker, I have only three minutes left. The fifth reason is that this appeal board will bring us greater uniformity. I realize that, as the hon. member for Parktown said uni.formity can also be dangerous if it means rigidity and one-sidedness, but by uniformity I mean a logical application which will bring security of justice, an application by one specialized body which will gain experience from day to day, which will be able to lay down a high standard of judgment in respect of the control of publications, and which, by way of its judgments from time to time, which it will have to substantiate and motivate and for which it will have to give reasons, will also build up a set of rules which will provide our people with security of justice.

I want to summarize by saying that we are dealing here with a Bill which is positively oriented and which seeks balance, with an appeal board which is intended to function in the best tradition as an independent body which everyone can approach freely since he will be appearing before a well-equipped board at which he knows he will be granted a fair and just hearing. Any attempt from the other side to prove the contrary amounts to malicious suspicion-mongering.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will allow me to say that I found it extremely interesting that ten years ago in this House we were abolishing the old Board of Censors and establishing the Publications Board. At that time the hon. member’s father, highly respected man, someone for whom I had a great deal of respect, spoke with very great expectations of the Publications Board which was then being created. We uttered certain warnings, and after ten years it appears that all those warnings were justified. The thought occurred to me when the hon. member for Vereeniging was expressing such great expectations of the new directorate which is now to be established. I am convinced that it will go the same way. I just want to reply to one remark made by the hon. member. He said that it is the duty of the Government to exercise discretion. No one disputes that, it is the purpose of government. Nevertheless discretion may not be arbitrary. A Government exercises its discretion by way of legislation, and it is because we are dealing with legislation which defines matters that there has to be a court with the right of final judgment over the implementation.

The scope of the work of the commission, the two reports which were submitted and this voluminous Bill which is now before us, is of such a nature that in 30 minutes one can only deal with a few of the aspects in one’s argument. We on this side will therefore have to rely heavily on the Committee Stage of the Bill in order to deal with the important details. The hon. member for Caledon said yesterday that the four of us on this side who served on the Commission submitted a minority report merely to form a contrast to the Schlebusch Commission and to show how Opposition members should conduct themselves on a commission. The hon. member listened to stories. At the very outset of the deliberations, firstly as a Select Committee and subsequently as a commission, we agreed that there no difference of opinion existed between us and the members on that side on the principle of control. We were and we are still aware of the fact that there are a number of Western countries—we think in particular of Denmark—that have abolished all control as far as adults are concerned. Only children are protected there. However, it is too soon to arrive at any definite conclusion on the effect of the position in Denmark or to determine whether it would be at all desirable for us, as well, to consider anything of that nature. In any case we wanted, and still do, to consider matters from the point of view of South Africa’s interests and circumstances, and from that point of view all the members of the Commission expressed themselves in favour of the principle of control. The principle has the full support of this side of the House. Therefore we need not argue about the principle of control at all, nor even about whether or not control should be effected. It goes without saying, if there is a reason for control in respect of any matter, that that control should then be as effective in practice as it can possibly be made.

In the second place the members of the Commission were unanimously in favour of barring pornography and filth, and material which was subversive or preached violence, as well as communist propaganda. We did not argue about that either. There was unanimity on that score.

In the third place we, on our part, made it clear from the outset that we would approach the proceedings with an open mind, and that we would do everything in our power to try to improve the existing system wherever this appeared necessary. We said that we would even be prepared to consider an entirely new system, but on one condition, which was that there should under no circumstances be any tampering with the fundamental right which every citizen ought to have, if he felt that he had been wronged, of recourse to free and impartial courts of the country. The right of appeal to the courts had to remain. From the outset we insisted on this and said: If you tamper with this, there can be no further co-operation. It was only when we reached the stage where the majority of the Commission formally resolved to deprive the people of this basic civil right that our paths diverged and we drew up our own scheme. I need not emphasize it again. The proposed appeal board of members opposite is no court. The fact that the chairman will be a member of the legal profession does not ensure the freedom and the impartiality which characterize the courts of our country. Sitting here in this House is a string of very partial advocates, attorneys and lawyers, and there are far more partial lawyers outside. All of them would qualify for the chairmanship of the appeal board. The Minister designates the person who is going to be appointed and the person who may be re-appointed by the Government every five years. Unfortunately experience has taught us that with such appointments party-political considerations decide the issue every time, as was in fact the case with the existing Publications Board and its panel. To give a practical example—there is nothing to prevent the Government appointing Mr. Jannie Kruger and the members of the present board to the new directorate; appointing all the present panel members of the Publications Board to the committees; and appointing the advocate, however good he may be who was until recently vice-chairman of the Publications Board, to be chairman of the new appeal board. We would then have the entire present Publications Board just as it is, but only in another form. I am not saying this by way of any reflection on the persons I have mentioned—they are all honourable people—but merely to indicate how little the contemplated appeal board has in common with a court. I want to tell the hon. Minister that removing the right of appeal to the independent courts of the country deprives our system of control and censorship of the last vestige of political impartiality, and for that reason I must inform the hon. Minister that the public will have no confidence in the new scheme. Sir, the argument which was raised here that the courts are not qualified to give a decisive answer on disputes over a social question such as censure, is ridiculous, for apart from the objectiveness of the courts and the years of experience which judges have gained in sifting evidence and weighing up one standpoint against another, there is not a single social-human problem with which the courts do not deal everyday: Divorces, the future of children, crime in all its forms, welfare matters of all kinds. Sir, we have had major political cases before our courts; we have had major ecclesiastical cases before our courts, and here I think in particular of the great Du Plessis case, and this is still happening. Even the churches are not, in their conduct, beyond the ambit of the courts, and for that reason I, too, must say that to adopt the standpoint that a social problem such as that of censure and the cultural rights of people which this involves, should be placed beyond the ambit of the courts of the country, is to misapprehend the entire nature and the position of our courts. Sir, great emphasis was placed here on the explanation given by Mr. Justice Rumpff in a censureship case nine years ago. Not only was the quotation wrested from its context, but it was never repeated in subsequent cases by Mr. Justice Rumpff, and if one reads his ruling it is clear that this portion was never intended to advocate the abolition of the right of appeal to the courts. On the contrary, the evidence which we heard before the Commission from all over was overwhelmingly opposed to the abolition of the right of appeal to the courts and, Sir, above all, the leading Afrikaans cultural institutions, the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie, the South African General Bar Council and the Bar Councils of all the provinces were all opposed to the abolition of the right of appeal to the courts. There were a few organizations which were in fact prepared to support a change, but they were prepared to do so only if a special court with a serving judge assisted by expert assessors were appointed to hear the appeal case. In any case, Sir, whatever the opinion of any legal personage may be—it makes no difference to me that the opinions of one or two members of the legal profession are quoted here and there—it is not the task of a judge to decide what he should do; it is the task of this Parliament. What is at issue here is not the opinion of a judge on what work he wants to or does not want to do; what is at issue here is an absolutely fundamental matter in a democracy, which is that any citizen, whoever he may be, a criminal even, who feels that he has been wronged by a Government body, must have the right to have recourse to an independent and impartial court, otherwise one’s democracy ceases at that point. Sir, we on this side will not surrender that principle—it does not matter who says what. Sir, I want to tell the hon. the Minister that this unnecessary and foolish onslaught on such a fundamental civil right of the individual is not only the principal reason for our total opposition to this Bill; but through this action on the part of the Government, it has in advance destroyed any hope that the country as a whole will have any confidence in the new machinery which is being created here. We on this side do not have any; we make no secret of that, and we shall in future subject every publication, every appointment and every act on the part of the directorate and its appendages to the closest scrutiny. I want to say this to the hon. member for Omaruru; He was a member of the commission and raised the question of South-West Africa here, and he made a few personal digs in my direction. He is welcome to do so. But he must remember that it is he and his Government which has declared South-West Africa to be a territory with an international status and not we. Therefore, all legislation affecting South-West Africa is subjected to close scrutiny outside South Africa, and if you read today’s newspapers, you will see that this Bill has already attracted unfavourable attention in the outside world. I want to tell the hon. member for Omaruru that if he had really had the interests of South-West Africa at heart, he would not have allowed himself to be misled into supporting a measure here—and I am referring now to the abolition of the appeal to the courts—which encroaches upon the basic rights and the cultural liberties of the individual. We, Sir, are opposed to this, and we shall vote against it, and we want to urge upon the hon. the Minister the necessity of arranging to exempt South-West Africa from this measure in time or, if not that, or refraining from making the abolition of the appeal to the courts applicable to South-West Africa. Sir, I mentioned earlier that we are dealing here with the third major attempt under the present Government to create an instrument of control which will bring satisfaction, and then I am not counting all the patchwork which has been done in the intervening years. I honestly believe that the hon. the Minister and his Government will be as unsuccessful with this measure as with its previous attempts. In fact, it will find that the new arrangements which are now being made will create more dissatisfaction and provoke more irritation among the general public than was the case under the existing legislation, and that the little section of a section of a section he is trying to satisfy, will remain just as unsatisfied as it is today, for the simple reason that it is not possible to satisfy them. Sir, the censorship which we have today rests on only a few supports, and it is important that we remember this for people talk here as if all censorship is at present in the hands of the Publications Board and will pass into the hands of the directorate, and that our scheme relies solely on “voluntary censorship”. But that is not true. Our present system of censorship rests on a number of important pillars. The first is a series of Acts, plus the common law in so far as it relates to blasphemy, criminal libel, sedition and anarchy; and any contravention of any of these 12 Acts renders a person liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary courts of the country.

Let me mention only a few of those Acts. The others are contained in our minority report. There is. for example, the Suppression of Communism Act, which, inter alia, prohibits the publication of certain political literature. There is the Riotous Assemblies Act, which inter alia, makes provision for the prohibition of publications which might create hostility between groups or races. The Post Office Act, which makes provision for the destruction of offensive mail matter, as well as for the punishment of the offender. The Improper and Indecent Photographic Material Act, which prohibits the possession of photographic material depicting various forms of sexual behaviour. And above all there is the Customs and Excise Act, which prohibits the importation of indecent or obscene goods. There are also a number of other Statutes. I have mentioned only the most important. Of all these Acts, the Customs Act is the most important. It is by far our greatest instrument of censorship in South Africa, Not the Publications Board, but the Customs Act. It stands like a great sieve at our harbours and airports and at all the places of entry in South Africa and serves as the first screening instrument. It bars the entry of pornography, which is called “trash pornography”, and filth. I say it again, Sir, this is our greatest and most important instrument of censorship. Now, in our proposals we are in favour of the retention of this important instrument, and we are even agreeable—wherever it may be necessary to improve some of these Acts so as to make better instruments of them—to this being done. Thus it displays the utmost ignorance for an hon. member to allege, as some have in fact done, that we want to fall back on what is called mere voluntary self-censorship.

The second pillar on which our present system of censorship rests, is the public and the Publications Board. These two go together. The Publications Board has the task of examining all films in advance, i.e. before they are exhibited. However, it also has a second task which is to receive complaints from the public and to consider these, in respect of exhibitions and also in respect of books and objects published or manufactured internally, or which slipped through the customs sieve from abroad, or in regard to which the customs officials had doubts and referred to the Publications Board, because the Publications Board, as it exists, does not act on its own initiative, but simply reacts to books and objects submitted to the board by the public, the police or the customs officer. The Publications Board does not itself act as examiner or as inspector. We think this principle ought to be retained in respect of any control body which may be created.

It has been calculated that approximately 20 000 to 30 000 publications come on to the market annually. According to the evidence submitted to us, it takes the Publications Board a month on an average to cause one book, if it is a thick book, to go through the process of screening. Hon. members will appreciate that it will be an impossible task for the Publications Board or any committee or board to take upon itself the full responsibility for the screening of books, and for that reason we think that it is a very good principle to maintain as it stands at present, i.e. that if no complaint is received from the public, it should be accepted that no problem exists. Mrs. R. Theron, who is a member of the board and who was a very impressive witness, in-R. Theron, who is a member of the board advocates, particularly in respect of performances, is just this: That where there is no complaint, there is no problem.

Members of the Publications Board testified that in respect of the task of censoring films—only in respect of films do they have to view everything—they have to cope with approximately 3 000 films per annum. They testified that they were no longer able, with the existing staff, to cope with the situation. One can understand this. Can you imagine what the position will be in a few years’ time, as the standard of living of millions of non-Whites in South Africa improves, as the general population increases in leaps and bounds? New population groups with new cultural needs are arising, as is already the case in Johannesburg today, where 75 000 Portuguese are already living today as new South Africans. There are many other new groups as well. They have their needs, which have to be considered. Television with all its casettes, video tapes and so on, is imminent. In the near future it will be a completely impossible task to censor in advance the thousands of films which will be made, according to the procedure which is being adopted today. However, it is not only films which are subject to pre-censorship, but also all posters, photographs and the small posters displayed on the walls of cinemas, are similarly subject to this.

Our view is that the task will become completely impossible, and that no Publications Board or directorate, or welter of committees will be able to control the situation in the years to come, unless the Government of course wants to appoint an ever-growing host of officials and bureaucrats at ever-increasing expense to the State, to be able to do the work. That is why we considered the situation as realists and began timeously to look for other and better directions of control. Apart from the great sieve, and I want to emphasize this, of laws such as the Customs and Excise Act, which already exists and which will remain, we want to develop further the principle which forms the basis of self-control, according to an approved code which the Government grants to the Press, to include all sectors of the world of publications and entertainments. The newspapers today are the largest and most comprehensive source of publications in the country, the very largest. This is one sphere in which publications penetrate to every household in South Africa. I now want to put this question to hon. members opposite: If the Government can accept a system of self-control on the part of the greatest and most important source of publications according to their own code and penal provisions in practice and in principle, how on earth can it have objections on principle if the same principle is applied to the other sectors of the world of publications and exhibitions? In view of the enormous and ever-growing scope of the task of control, the scheme which we propose is the only one which can work successfully in the end. We believe that all sectors of the world of publications and entertainments still remains subject to all the sieves which I have already mentioned, to all the controlling legislation which now exists, and which actually forms the first leg of censorship in South Africa. It also remains subject to the watchful eye of the public and Parliament. Now, we envisage, together with this, the appointment of a registrar of publications, to whom Parliament will entrust specific functions. He will, as now, be able to receive complaints from the public which he will immediately transmit to the Police or to the relevant board or to the Attorney-General for their attention. According to our proposal the most important task of this registrar will be to become the link between the public and the various regulating bodies which will be established. In the minority report we indicate that the beginning of such regulating bodies already exists. In this way I think, for example, of the Bookdealers Association of South Africa, which is very representative. So, too, there is the Federation of Film Societies, the South African Library Association; the Committee of University Heads, which we would like to see as the body which decides on the question of university books; the Performing Arts Councils, and many others which already exist. These can all be expanded into controlling bodies on the same model as the National Press Union, which, as the Government has approved in principle, has to undertake its own control. We envisage further a comprehensive national advisory board on which all these boards which I have mentioned, as well as which will be established, as well as the churches, the universities, cultural bodies, as well as the various population groups in South Africa will be represented. Where deficiencies exist, these can be submitted by the registrar to Parliament, so that they can be eliminated immediately. We should like them to meet regularly, hold discussions and report to Parliament, so that Parliament and the country can keep pace with the development of ideas and public ideas and can eliminate deficiencies as recommended. I believe that the scheme of the minority report offers in all respects a workable and practical solution, and will in any case be within the means of the taxpayers as well. Against the scheme which we have, stands the Bill before us with its excess of bureaucracy, with its welter of committees, its brigade of inspectors who will have the right to make unendurable inroads on the right of the individual to his personal freedom. This is a Bill which will impose extraordinary burdens on everyone interested in films, a Bill which stands for the abolition of the fundamental rights of the citizen, namely recourse to the courts, and which in any case offers a total absence of fair and really significant participation to the other racial groups in the country in this sphere. Numerous books written by Bantu, Indian and Coloured writers, are being banned because the Government does not like their nationalistic ideas. There are other reasons, too, why we should oppose the Bill. I have mentioned the most important, and we shall deal with the others during the Committee Stage.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout associated himself with other members on that side of the House who see nothing positive in this set-up proposed by this Bill, and who predict that it will be a complete failure. They have thrown in the towel in advance as far as the concept and principle of control of undesirable publications in South Africa are concerned. While they solemnly say, through the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, that they are in favour of control of publications in South Africa, they despair of the system we suggest, and propose a different system which must lead to ever-diminishing control in South Africa. In terms of their proposals the responsibility the authorities would have in this connection, have to be transferred to other voluntary bodies. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout says, on the one hand, he believes in control; but on the other hand he is in favour of a system based on voluntary participation in control. He says he believes that the Publications Control Board should be retained, but on the other hand the following is stated in his own report, the minority report—

I repeat: The hon. member blows hot and cold, which is so typical of the opposite side of the House. On the one hand he pleads for control and pretends to be the champion of control, but on the other hand he wants to introduce a system in terms of which the powers of censorship of the Government organ will disappear into the hands of voluntary bodies. This is the system he presented to us, and I wonder whether his approach is not very akin to that of the Progressive Party, which we heard stated by the hon. member for Park-town this afternoon. The approach adopted by the hon. member for Parktown was to the effect that we should simply leave it to the courts. We should simply apply the laws which may exist, and we should simply leave it to the courts. I see the hon. member for Sea Point nodding his agreement. Now, I am asking the hon. members for Bezuidenhout and Sea Point: If this were to be our attitude in South Africa, i.e. that we should simply leave it to the courts, that we should simply exercise control by instituting criminal proceedings in the case of a person publishing indecent publications, what about the large number of publications which would heave been distributed throughout the country prior to the proceedings? What about publications which may endanger State security and are distributed throughout the country before the publisher can be prosecuted by means of legal proceedings?

And what about the other laws?

I am dealing with them. What about the possibility that pornography may be published and that, only after an appearance in court—I do not say this on my own authority, but on that of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout—a process which may take as long as six weeks—would it be possible to take steps against that offensive publication which is being distributed throughout the country? Is that the attitude of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout? Is that the attitude of the hon. member for Sea Point? The control they talk about—I did not hear the word “control” from the Progressive Party, but I did hear it mentioned by the United Party—is mere lip-service.

I also want to deal with another point concerning the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. He uses the expression “arbitrary decisions” so lightly across the floor of this House. I think he used it here twice or three times this afternoon. Since when are the decisions arbitrary? No arbitrary decisions are taken; decisions are, in fact, taken in terms of the Act which lays down certain directions concerning the procedure and certain definitions one has to comply with. If one ignores such directions and contravenes the law as far as this matter is concerned, then there is access to the courts by means of review—whether it is by a committee, a directorate or a body of appeal. I now want to ask the hon. member how he can use this expression so lightly across the floor of this House, as if this entire legislation is going to introduce an arbitrary system. After all, he heard what the hon. member for Vereeniging said. Surely, he heard what safeguards have been incorporated in this measure, safeguards of control and counter-control, of revision, of review, even of compulsory review in some cases. He heard all these things, but he deliberately keeps on harping on “arbitrary action”.

I used it only once.

These self-controlling bodies the hon. member advocates—he was the first speaker on that side of the House who advocated in this House the system proposed by the minority group of the commission; all the other speakers opposite said we should retain the old Act. He said the nucleus of self-controlling bodies already exists in South Africa. If this nucleus already exists, if associations exist in South Africa which are able to act as has been suggested, why have they not acted in this way already Why have they not formed themselves into control bodies and why did they not apply self-control?

They have got you in a corner now, Japie.

Why have they not taken action already? Surely, they could have taken action by now; for patriotic reasons they could have taken action by now. In fact, the only body taking action of this kind is the South African Press Board, and it was a commission of inquiry that had been appointed and certain opinions that had been voiced which led to the self-control and self-discipline on the part of the South African Press Board. Does the Booksellers’ Association apply self-censorship? In any case, we have not been told about it. The hon. member therefore comes along with proposals of self-controlling bodies, a proposal devoid of any substance, because these bodies have given no indication that they are prepared to make a contribution towards self-censorship and self-discipline in this country.

But what is the use of it if there is a Publications Board?

How does the hon. member for Von Brandis explain the fact that we had a witness, a certain Major Cilliers, before the commission from whom we had to hear about all the blue films and all the illegally distributed films in the country in spite of the existence of the Motion Picture Association to which the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred? Why were fines to the tune of R144 000 imposed in the course of four months because of the illegal distribution of films in South Africa? Why does this happen? It happens because these self-controlling bodies to which the hon. the Opposition and the hon. member for Bezuidenhout referred, are not prepared to fulfil that function.

The hon. members opposite were very fond of comparing these bodies—and they did so in their report as well—with professional associations such as these we find in South Africa, viz. the society of attorneys, the Bar Association, the society of chartered accountants, the Association of Medical Practitioners, and so forth. They tried to create the impression that on the basis of such professional associations, we could easily create such associations which would be able to apply the function of self-discipline. What is, in fact, the function of these professional associations? In the first place, they are very selective regarding the admission of persons to membership in those professional associations. This is their primary function. For that reason certain requirements are laid down. Before a person is admitted as an attorney, he must at least be of a certain character; he must have attained a certain educational standard and must have passed certain professional examinations, and everything that goes with it. The result is that, before one can be admitted as a member of such a professional association, there must be a very special reason for wanting to join it. It therefore also has a controlling function as far as membership is concerned. Now hon. members opposite will have to tell me whether they are prepared to restrict freedom of trade, which is another individual right and personal freedom, for associations such as the Motion Picture Association, the Booksellers’ Association and the like? Are they prepared to say that, before starting a business as a publisher, one first has to join such an association and comply to certain standards? Are they prepared to say that it is their attitude that they want to restrict the freedom of trade of these people in this way, a freedom of trade which is not restricted at present? Mr. Speaker, you will notice that their idea is quite ill-conceived.

I want to go further. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that he could imagine that there would be a large number of partial jurists in South Africa who would be appointed to this appeal board. He presumed that he would be dealing with a most partial body, a body which is going to decide in a particular way. However, these people are appointed in precisely the same way as are judges in our country. Does the hon. member want to suggest that the judges are partial gentlemen, that they are drawn only from one particular party? Does he want to suggest that the Government is unable to use its discretion in this case?

May I ask the hon. member a question? Is a judge also dependent on the Minister for his re-appointment in the same way as is a member of this appeal court?

No, the hon. member is correct in that respect. The judges are appointed for life. That is quite in order, but there is no reason why these members will not be appointed for life as well.

There is a reason. This Bill is the reason.

What I mean, is that there is no reason why a member may not be re-appointed. There is also no reason why we cannot reconsider the position after this legislation has been in operation for a length of time. This is something quite different. This is an aspect we may consider. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout made a further remark. He said it was absurd to say that the courts are not capable of giving attention to decision of the nature required in terms of the Bill. He said we should take no notice of the judgment given by Mr. Justice Rumpff nine years ago. Incidentally, this judgment was confirmed later after he had become Chief Justice. He said we should ignore the decisions quoted by my hon. colleague here. The hon. member was a member of the commission of inquiry. He heard what evidence was given and he knows what witnesses appeared before us.

No evidence was given by a judge.

Does he want to tell us that we should also ignore the important evidence given by Mr. Justice Kobie Marais, who gave evidence before us?

Did he also give evidence?

Yes, he gave evidence before us. Do they want to tell me that we should ignore this important evidence?

Read what he said 10 or 12 years ago.

Does he also want to tell us that we should ignore all the evidence of all the jurists who appeared before us? We had a certain Advocate Fuchs, who conceded after this system had been put to him, that the system should be able to work. There were other jurists and other bodies who gave evidence before us as well. If it should amount to one for you and one for me, and we should start counting the people who support this and people who do not support this, I think this side of the House is certainly going to come out the winner.

Do not make statements like that. Give us the evidence as proof.

Do you want me to quote Mr. Justice Kobie Marais’s evidence for you?

Yes, quote him so that we can hear it.

I shall let one of the next speakers have it, and then he can quote it to you. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon. members must give the hon. member an opportunity to complete his speech.

Mr. Speaker, we have finished talking to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout.

I actually want to refer to the very pleasant speech we heard from the hon. member for South Coast yesterday afternoon. I want to congratulate him on his speech and also on the light touch he displayed here. He took us back into the history of censorship. Perhaps there are few other historical points he could have mentioned as well, other historical attempts to apply censorship which we have had in the past, not in this country but in Europe. I have read that the first censorship on record possibly dates from Babylonian times when a certain Babylonian girl from the lower class displayed certain parts of her naked body to distract the attention of three gentlemen who were collecting taxes. In that case the censorship also worked, but the exposure of the body was not the subject of censorship; it was in fact, those gentlemen who, owing to the naked display, did not do their duties upon whom the death-penalty was imposed. We also read of a certain empress in Roman times who openly indulged in sunbathing in the nude at sports meetings. We also had the notorious “Star Chamber” to which reference has been made. That was in the 17th century and was discontinued in the year 1640. There was the Licensing Act of 1662 which prohibited “heretical, schismatical or offensive books”. There were also many other cases, but time will not allow me to mention them all. There was also the “word purge” of 1672 when approximately 367 words were deleted from the English-language, or an attempt to delete them. There was a certain gentleman, Thoma Bowdler, who applied his energies to have the classics rewritten and to have certain words deleted which offended him. He even tried to rewrite Shakespeare and the Bible. We also had in America the Comstock Act of 1873, which led to a very strict and puritan form of censorship. The reason why I am mentioning this, is to tell you, Mr. Speaker—maybe this is being said in a light vein—that it is difficult for censorship to succeed. It is one of the most difficult subjects. Through the ages various attempts have been made and through the ages people found that problems arise. I do not want to suggest that even this measure is capable of solving the problems of South Africa as far as censorship is concerned; this is merely the endeavour of a group of men, members of the commission, who, in fact strove for control over those things we should like to rid our society of. Evil, whether in the field of morality or in the field of State security, always feeds on the sensual instead of the meaningful, and the sensual undoubtedly has a motive force one has to reckon with in any society and in any civilization. Crude and unrestrained human passion has an inherent energy and motive force of satanic magnitude, so much so that we cannot help but notice that the Western world is, in fact, reeling under the onslaught of this energy and motive force which demolishes morals and moral standards. One may even blame some of the Governments which collapsed during the past six months of a lack of certain moral standards. This situation developed in the world while laws existed against obscenity, while courts existed which applied these laws. This system, this situation in terms of which people are casting anxiously about them for a way in which to destroy this monster, developed in spite of laws and in spite of courts and in spite of the actions of patriotic citizens and people who had the interests of the youth at heart. I say this particularly on account of the fact that the Progressive Party and to a large extent also the United Party adopt the attitude that the courts and only the courts should be the instrument of control in this country. In America, as recently as in 1970, the President of that country said that something should be done about this matter. Certain people came forward and drew up a report and made certain proposals to him, and it is remarkable that what they proposed was control of the source of publication and not control by the courts. In Britain itself, where the same problems are to a large extent being experienced at present, patriotic citizens came together and drew up the so-called Longford Report and they, in turn, tried to make proposals in terms of which they hoped to constrain this monster of obscenity and pornography. If this happened, if the consciences of these people were stimulated in those countries in spite of the existence of the system they have, viz. laws and courts, why should we follow the same course, the same frustrating course? That is why I say that we are on the right course if we proceed with a system of control, a system in terms of which control can be exercised over publications and in terms of which the distribution of undesirable publications can be avoided. This is the method we are applying here in our country and which is being accepted to a certain extent by the Opposition, but which they want to do away with gradually. I must tell you, Sir, that I had the opportunity last year, while one a visit to Britain, to discuss this matter with Lord Longford himself. When I told him that we had in mind to lay down, as a standard of judgment, that judgment should be exercised on the basis of Christian standards and Christian ethics, he said: “I would like to do that in this country, but I cannot”. This is the situation that has already been reached. We now have this system of control proposed by the legislation before us and now I want to tell you. Sir, that this system of control will only succeed if the public has this at heart, if it is accepted by such critical people as we have in the Press. If it is accepted we shall be able to defend this system. I think we shall be able to do this and I think we shall be able to obtain the support of the public for this system because what we are doing is to introduce greater public participation in this proposed system, because in this system we are to a large extent giving the public more access to and more of a say in this matter, and because we are now protecting the system against excessive criticism on the part of the Press. For example, we have the evidence of Professor Murray on page 407, where he complained about this excessive criticism on the part of the Press. He used this example, and I am quoting from page 407 (translation)—

That was the evidence that was given before us and in order to safeguard the Appeal Board from the outset against any suspicion that might be raised against it, as hon. members on that side of the House has already done, a clause, clause 37, has been included in the Bill, and I now want to quote this clause because it is a very important clause. In terms of this clause the Appeal Board is being protected and is not being placed above criticism—of course not—because in the same way as the judgment of a court may be discussed, so may the judgment of this Appeal Board. But it at least has this advantage that the unbridled criticism levelled at the Publications Board in the past, is being curtailed. I am quoting the clause—

1. (a) insult, disparage or belittle any member of the appeal board or prejudice, influence or anticipate the proceedings or findings of the appeal board;
2. (b) during a meeting of the appeal board wilfully interrupt the proceedings of the appeal board or misconduct himself in any other manner in the place where such meeting is held.

This is very important. It reads further—

1. (c) do anything in relation to the appeal board which if done in relation to a court of law would have constituted contempt of court.

In this way we hope to afford a certain standing to this appeal board in the eyes of the public, a certain protection in terms of which this board will be able to avoid the excessive criticism levelled at the Publications Board in the past. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest and appreciation to the discussion of this Bill in the House. In the time at my disposal I should like to make a few remarks about the relation between the composition of our population and the question of norms, and then, in conclusion, I shall also make a few remarks about some of the impressions I have gained in the course of the debate.

Before doing so, may I beg your kind leave, Sir, to make a few remarks in a broader context. I want to say that I consider it a great honour and privilege to take my seat in this House. It was quite a difficult choice for me to make to leave academic life for practical politics. Nevertheless I want to make use of this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to my Alma Mater, the University of Stellenbosch, and my former colleagues, for the years of co-operation and the fraternal spirit I experienced at that institution.

There is one thing which made it easier for me to come here, and that is the fact that I have a good many acquaintances on both sides of the House, some of whom, in fact, I am privileged to count among my friends. I look forward to the opportunity of developing those relationships and friendships in this atmosphere, and of making them more realistic. What follows from this is that I hope that when I associate in a friendly spirit with the hon. members for Randburg, Bryanston, Maitland, Newton Park, Pinelands, Rondebosch, Waterberg and Turffontein, I will not be accused of undesirable conduct under the Bill or of group formation or corruption of morals.

The discussions in this House during the period in which I have been sitting here have convinced me that in the last resort, it is our race relations problem which affects and influences and also dominates every possible aspect of our national life. We cannot get away from this, and it is clear that the problem of those relations continues, whether subtly or otherwise, to figure prominently in the discussion of this Bill, too. Particularly after the establishment of the Republic it became, for many, the one problem dominating not only our political scene, but our national life as a whole. It is clear to me that the dominant nature of this problem will increase as never before in the years that lie ahead and will, in fact, be the vital factor in the future of our country and its people. I hope that what I shall have to say in this connection—it is meant in this spirit—will not be contentious in the light of the tradition regarding maiden speeches in this House.

In the first place I want to point out that the heterogeneity which is so characteristic of our population structure casts its shadow on virtually all matters which engage and will engage the attention of this House. The South African population consists of a multiplicity of language groups, cultural groups, race and colour groups and peoples, to mention only a few facets. Within each of those groups, again, we find a tremendous diversity in terms of the cultural level, religions and so on. This basic structure of our society is not the creation of this generation, this House, this Government or of this Opposition. It is the product we have inherited from the generations preceding ours; but the task of all of us in this House is to create in our time, to the best of our ability, a modus vivendi by means of which we can achieve a degree of accommodation, on whatever basis, in order to bring about reconciliation in terms of that heterogeneous composition of our population. This cultural hetereogeneity is of necessity related to differences in values and norms. How, then, to create a system in the form and nature of censorship, if I may use the term, which will take into account and reflect this cultural multiformity, is certainly one of the major problems with which we in this House will have to grapple in the context of this Bill.

Like many others, I am bitterly unhappy that our party-political division should to such a large extent be along language lines between the Afrikaans- and English-speaking sections. We probably all know the historic reasons why this division developed as it did and I do not believe there is much sense in laying the blame for this at the door of either group. I do believe that we sometimes fail to assign enough importance to our common patriotism, our loyalty and our devotion to our country and that our common destiny is often lost sight of in the heat of the fray. I do believe that, as is already happening in the economic and other spheres, we can achieve a symbiosis in the field of politics as well, fully upholding and respecting each other’s language and characteristic culture and our fundamental values and principles, so that we may hold out our hands to one another and work together in the development of our country. If, then, there must be division—and in any democratic country and in any vigorous society such division is unavoidable—let it then be on the basis of something other than language differences and blind sectional allegiance.

The problem occurs to an even greater extent with regard to the cultural differences between the White population and the Bantu. In this context it seems to me that we sometimes, to a certain extent, find ourselves torn two ways. On the one hand we say, and we believe, that the culture of the Bantu peoples contains much that is fine and good and that it should be our task to help them to strengthen and extend that autochthonous culture. On the other hand, we know that the process of contact between White and Bantu has already brought about a substantial degree of acculturation. It is even true that owing to, inter alia, our education system and the full, sustained efforts of our Christian churches to christianize the Bantu, that process of acculturation is being promoted and expedited. Now, the question could sometimes be asked whether, after we have done all these things, we are not perhaps refusing to accept the inevitable consequences and implications of that acculturization, and adapt accordingly. In deciding on this Bill, too, it seems to me that it will be of cardinal importance to give full recognition, to the greatest possible extent, to the changing norms and values among the Bantu themselves.

The same problem applies to a certain extent—or so it appears to me—in respect of the two other non-White groups as well. I note that in clauses 6 and 7 of the Bill, provision is made for the establishment of a Coloured Advisory Committee and an Indian Advisory Committee, respectively. If, to emphasize just one facet of the matter, one bears in mind the characteristic religious and cultural norms and values which apply to the Malay section of the Coloured group, for example—something one also comes across among the Indian population with its division between Hindus and Mohammedans—some of them could perhaps with sincerity ask the question whether a conflict may perhaps arise in regard to the provisions of clause 1 of the Bill, namely that in its application, the constant endeavour of the population of South Africa to uphold a Christian view of life, shall be recognized.

The problem of the diverse composition of our population is of course immeasurably aggravated by the numerical ratios. May I take the liberty of drawing your attention to the fact that in 1970, out of a total population of a little more than 22 million, there were about 3 800 00 Whites, 651 000 Asiatics, 2 million-odd Coloureds, and about 15,5 million Bantu. According to Prof. Sadie the projected total population in the year 2000, viz. in 26 years’ time, will be about 50 million, comprising 6 900 000 Whites, 1 215 000 Asiatics, 4 900 000 Coloureds and 37 million Bantu. According to this projection, this total population will by the year 2020 have grown to 81 million, comprising just over 9 million Whites, 1 617 000 Asiatics, 7,75 million Coloureds and 62,75 million Bantu; in other words, an increase of 22 million in the next quarter-century and 31 million in the first two decades of the coming century. Thus it is clear to me that the biggest task we are faced with now, whatever we may attempt within this House or elsewhere, will be the overriding problem of creating a viable reconciliation between the fast-growing cultural, political and economic aspirations of the non-White population groups, wherever they may be here in Southern Africa, on the one hand, and on the other the assured survival and security of the Whites, and in particular, too, the desire for the right of self-determination which lies at the heart of Afrikaner nationalism. I make so bold as to say that no sensible person believes, or still believes, that we can create future for our country through baasskap, through domination of the one by the other. I assume, too, that no one will take it amiss of me when I say that we shall all have to co-operate to find the final answer to this vexing question. The historic process of contact here in our country has given rise to attitudes and dispositions which place major obstacles in the way. The fundamental test will be whether we can put into operation a system which is able to offer to both, the possibilities of full satisfaction and human dignity. I need only point out that with this increase in the Bantu population, it is a sober fact that in view of their numbers, the matters which this Bill deals with—the question of control over publications, entertainments and so on—are still going to affect the other population groups to an even greater extent than it will affect us, the Whites.

If I look back over this debate of the past few days, there are a few remarks I want to make in all frankness. It seems to me that there are five aspects in particular which are relevant to the consideration of this matter. In the first place, there is the problem of the relation between the freedom of the individual and the interests of the community as a whole. Throughout the ages this conflict, or this potential conflict, has been present in all societies. In my opinion it is altogether impossible to work with absolute criteria here or to find such absolute criteria. But it remains true that the individual can only achieve his full development within the framework of the community as a whole. The bounds of my rights are to be found where the rights of my fellow-man begin. It is also clear that the nature and quality of life in that society and the vitality of that community will be determined by the extent to which the human spirit is given the freedom to grow and to create.

In the second place the question has arisen whether, in our kind of society, there are generally accepted norms or whether there should be generally applicable norms which may be used to determine what is and is not permissible.

In the third place, as I understood the debate, the question arose whether freedom for the individual to develop his creative abilities by determining for himself what he wants to read or see, for example, is reconcilable with the need or the necessity to protect the immature mind in particular against improper influence and exploitation.

In the fourth place it seems to me that one of the problems was the relation between the judicial, the legislative and the executive authority. This problem, too, is one of those present in all societies.

In the fifth place, I want to say that it is my impression that, generally speaking, there is a consensus in this House that there should in fact be some degree of control, and that there is sharp disagreement concerning the degree of control there should be and the form which that control should take.

In conclusion I want to say that I hope that my conduct in this House will always be in keeping with the dignity of this House and that my contribution, however, small, will always be of a constructive nature. In this regard I want to say that as far as I am concerned, I shall at all times welcome and give my full support to any constructive step which may be taken in the context of our population problems. In this I shall be guided not by personal or petty party-political considerations, but by giving honest thought to problems and by a sincere desire to serve our country and all its people.

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to congratulate the hon. member for Edenvale here on his entry to this House and on his maiden speech. It is clear that the hon. member adopts a serious and well-balanced approach to his politics and the attendant problems. It is also clear that this hon. member is well-acquainted with the predominating question which vexes us and causes us concern, about, namely the relations problem. The hon. member is an academic and therefore has a sound academic background. The hon. member, as he said, already has many friends and is well-known in many circles. As a result of all these aspects, and mindful of the knowledge which the hon. member has, I believe that he ought to be able to make a valuable contribution to the proceedings of this House. I want to wish him every success, prosperity and happiness during his sojourn here. Whether he will at all times be able to agree with everything, is an endeavour he will find difficult to realize.

I have a problem in regard to the Bill at present before the House, and the speeches made on the part of the Opposition in particular. I accept and personally believe, that the scope of this question which we are trying to settle in the legislation, is an enormous one, a tremendously comprehensive one in the permissive world in which we are living today. I believe that the State as such consequently has a bounden duty to fulfil in the implementation of what is decided here. I believe that what people think, and this is important, is in fact determined by what they read, by what they see and by what they hear. I believe that this is all the more important when we have to enact legislation which has a bearing on the youth. Initially, the adults of the country have to think for them as well. We must accept that the human urge for self-expression, for true artistic creation is not an urge which can or ought to be suppressed, with this proviso that creative works are not hung upside down under the cloak of art and served up as art. We appreciate this truism in English: “It cannot all be pure white or pure black” and that it is extremely difficult to determine or to define what is absolutely right, or absolutely wrong. As I said at the outset, I believe that it is the task of the State to watch over the morals and the sound education of the youth. Edgar Hoover, the American, once said—