Sir, I think the hon. member for Durban North will agree with me that after the explanation which was given to him in connection with his amendment by the hon. member for Vereeniging, it is hardly necessary for me to add anything. I think the hon. member for Vereeniging stated the case quite effectively and I could only repeat what he said. The hon. member for Durban North referred in his argument to subsection (6). I think that we have now decided here that the references to subsection (8) and the other subsections are really unnecessary. I just want to indicate that when the new Criminal Procedure Bill is introduced, which we hope will be next year, that subsection will not appear in the existing section 239. I think that the hon. member will then be more satisfied.

Sir, I also want to say by way of general explanation that this subsection has been inserted to give the public more protection than they have at the moment in respect of traffic offences. Before the conditions and requirements in respect of a measuring instrument are announced in terms of the proposed measures, the manufacturer of the instrument will have to lay it before the superintendent of weights and measures. The superintendent, in consultation with the C.S.I.R. and the SABS, will subject the instrument to tests and lay down the standards which the instrument must comply with. The superintendent of weights and measures will then inform the Department of Justice as to the conditions and requirements which the instrument will have to comply with to maintain the standards which have been laid down. It is these conditions and requirements and not the standards which the Minister will announce, and these entail (a) the particular way and the circumstances in which the instrument must be used and (b) the periodical inspection and testing of the instrument. The affidavit referred to in section 239(5A)(b) will accordingly have to be accompanied by a certificate issued by the superintendent of weights and measures which will indicate when the instrument was last tested. The National Road Safety Council, the Department of Commerce, and the Road Research Institute of the C.S.I.R. are satisfied, after consultation with the Department of Justice, that this is the best way to get rid of problems which presently arise with the furnishing of evidence, to ensure the reliability of the instruments and to eliminate the unreliable instruments. This procedure has this important advantage that a member of the public can satisfy himself that the manner and the circumstances in which the instrument was used, for example when he was caught in a speedtrap, correspond with the conditions and the requirements as to how the instrument has to be used. It can also be easily ascertained whether the instrument was subjected to the proposed tests. In the present circumstances, a member of the public is often left completely in the dark about the use of instruments and he cannot refute evidence which is adduced. When the provisions of this clause are not used, the usual method of furnishing evidence can still be followed. Of course, at this stage no reference can be made to specific instruments which will satisfy the requirements mentioned, since stand ards will only be laid down to this end after this legislation has been passed.

I do not think there is any point in continuing the argument as to whether or not the new subsection will be subject to the provisions of subsection (6) of the main section of the Act, namely that the magistrate should have the discretion to call the person who made the affidavit to give evidence viva voce and be cross-examined, especially as this power is exercised usually on the application of the accused who otherwise has no way in which he can test the accuracy of the instrument which trapped him on the road. We do not agree with the interpretation of the hon. member for Vereeniging and that adopted by the hon. the Minister, and for those reasons we will vote in favour of our amendments Nos. 1, 3, 4 and 5 which I moved last night.

The other thing I would like to say to the hon. the Minister is that so far as the testing by the SABS is concerned we quite agree that this is obviously something which has to be done. This is obviously one of the conditions that will be laid down, but it has already been said—as there is much authority for it. I do not wish to waste the Committee’s time by referring to it all that the instrument should be tested on the day. It should be known that on the day itself, the day on which the trap was sprung, on which he went through the trap, this instrument was in fact working properly. But in Dawson’s case the full Bench of the Natal Provincial Division said this—

I think, Sir, this sums up the attitude we have and the reason why we have moved the second amendment which I moved last night. I do not think we can take the matter further than that.

I should just like to deal with this aspect very briefly in conclusion. I want to tell the hon. member for Durban North that I think he is anticipating the whole thing. He has now referred to a case which dealt with the gatsometer, but it has not yet been decided that this will be one of the instruments which will be used. The position is that our department will test the various instruments in co-operation with the other departments concerned to establish which instrument gives us the very best result. If it subsequently appears from a court case, or in any other way, that even after we have taken the trouble of testing an instrument periodically, that instrument must also be tested on the day on which it is used then the necessary amendment will be made. The intention at the moment is not that it should be tested by traffic officials. We are thinking in terms of an instrument which will be tested periodically by the scientists and the intention is to select instruments which can maintain their accuracy for a certain time, and this will also be tested by the scientists; and then there will still be instructions as to how that specific instrument must be used. This will provide an additional assurance that on the day on which it is used, if it is used in the prescribed manner, it will provide the degree of satisfaction which we can reasonably expect to get in circumstances, such as these.

Amendment (1) put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: E. L. Fisher, and W. M. Sutton.

Tellers: J. M. Henning, N. F. Treurnicht, C. V. van der Merwe, W. L. van der Merwe.

Amendment negatived.

Remaining amendments negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, clause 7 is a repetition of all the new provisions which are in clause 3, viz. 17 new substantive provisions in the equivalent of the Criminal Procedure Act in South West Africa. The provisions are identical, our attitude towards them is identical, our attitude towards the amendments of the hon. member for Houghton on the Order Paper is identical, her amendments are identical and it seems having had our debate and having made the decisions we have made in respect of the identical matters, it will serve no purpose to argue these again at this stage.

Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact that these amendments have been fully canvassed during the discussions on clause 3 it is not our intention to move these amendments again. We do this to save time. Nevertheless, for the record, we would just like to say that we still totally disagree with the hon. the Minister and that we would like to see these being incorporated in the Bill.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The last occasion on which the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act, 1964, was amended, was in 1972. On that occasion it was said that this was not an Act one would want to tamper with unnecessarily, but that it was in fact necessary, in the light of experience that had been acquired, to supplement this Act from time to time to ensure that there was no hitch in the smooth functioning of both the Council as well its administrative machinery. I repeat that as long as this side of the House is in office, we shall continue to tie up any loose threads there may be in the Act in order to adapt it to any circumstances which may arise, and to modernize it into a Constitution embodying all aspects of the Council’s existence.

In 1972 it was found necessary, as far as the financial matters of the Council were concerned, to insert the subsection (2A), referred to in the present Bill, in the Act. Section 22 of the said Act provides, inter alia, for the preparation of estimates of expenditure of the Council by its executive and the submission of these estimates to the Minister for appropriation by Parliament of a lump sum to be applied by the Council by resolution. However, it was found necessary to make provision for steps to be taken by the Minister if the Council and its executive were to fail, for some unforeseen reason or other, to make moneys available by resolution for the services specified in the estimates—hence the subsection (2A) referred to. The only motive for that legislation was the necessity to ensure that the necessary funds would at all times be available for the continuation of the existing services for which the Council is responsible.

But, Mr. Speaker, it has subsequently come to our attention that there is a deficiency even in that statutory provision. If the executive should for example refuse to prepare draft estimates and to submit such estimates to the Minister in the prescribed manner, no other statutory provision exists at present for obtaining funds from the central Government for the purposes of the administrative organization of the Council, viz. the Administration of Coloured Affairs. Owing to lack of funds the said Administration will then be unable in practice to proceed with its functions, with resultant appalling hardships for the Coloured population.

But the problem is in fact a twofold one, and consequently there is another aspect as well, which has been settled with the Government law advisers. When the executive does in fact submit the said draft estimates to the Minister in the first place, but, after the moneys have been appropriated by Parliament, refuses or fails, for its own reasons—for example, in protest against reductions in the requested moneys—to submit the estimates in the prescribed manner to the Council to be made available by resolution, the Council as such cannot, according to legal opinion, be regarded as having had the opportunity to make moneys available, in other words that the prescribed procedure had been complied with. Recourse cannot then be had to subsection (2A) for the purpose of making moneys available, for this section provides that if the Council initially and the executive subsequently—in that sequence—fails to make moneys available, the Minister may do so on behalf of the Council. Again the Administration of Coloured Affairs will be financially embarrassed, for there will be no legal sanction for funds for the services it has to render.

The abovementioned possible problematical situations relate only to the provision of funds, but there are other matters as well—for example, failure to exercise powers which have been delegated, authority which has been granted and duties which have been imposed, which could paralyse effective administration. In the spheres of education, social welfare and pensions for Coloureds in particular, dereliction of duty and obstruction on the part of the Council and/or the executive could have alarming consequences. Mr. Speaker, the implications of this are obvious, and it is probably not necessary for me to spell out to hon. members here the possible consequences for those Coloureds, for example, who are dependent for their livelihood on the funds of this Council. In the opinion of everyone who is very closely involved in this matter and who has the progress and welfare of the Coloureds in all spheres— not only the political sphere—at heart, complete justification exists for providing that the Coloured community shall not suffer as a result of the non-performance of duties in terms of this legislation. Because misgivings have been expressed that the object may be to take over the CRC in its enterity and therefore even exercise legislative powers, I am willing to move an amendment in the Committee Stage which ensures that legislative power is not granted to the Minister. Coloured politics, seen within a developing political structure, are not always easily predictable, but it is the declared object of certain parties to destroy the CRC. These people accord no recognition to the good things which the Coloured population of this country have obtained since the establishment of this Council, and possibly do not realize the chaos, particularly when Parliament is in recess, which impulsive action on an administrative level could cause. To prevent such chaos, it has been suggested, and this has the support of this side of the House, that provision should not only be made for possible problems with regard to the making available of funds, but that a wider provision be substituted for the said subsection (2A) in the Act with a view to obtaining certainty with regard to all possible contingencies which could interfere with the administrative functions and duties of the Council. In reality, clause 2 of the Bill under discussion is therefore intended as an entrenchment and an assurance of the continued existence of the administrative functions of the Council.

In conclusion I want to point out that statutory provision to avoid possible administrative chaos is nothing new when one is dealing with a developing political structure and when future actions cannot be predicted with certainty. In 1963, for example, a provision was inserted in the Transkei Constitution Act (Act 48 of 1963) under the heading “Executive powers, authorities and functions to vest temporarily in Minister”. The provision reads as follows—

The principle involved in the Bill under discussion is therefore not a new one at all, and since the general welfare and progress of the Coloured population of our country is at stake here, I trust that hon. members will also consider it in this light.

Mr. Speaker,…

Order! Before the hon. the Leader of the Opposition commences his speech, I wish, for the guidance of hon. members, to state that it is the purpose and the principle of this Bill to grant more effective powers to the Minister, in the circumstances specified, to continue the work of the CRC. I shall allow a certain amount of latitude to one member of each of the opposition parties. Subsequent members will have to limit debate to the principle as stated in the Bill. I shall under no circumstances allow a general policy discussion or a summary of the history of Coloured representation in this House or in other institutions.

Mr. Speaker, may I address you on your ruling? In the course of the hon. the Minister’s speech he referred to the stage of development of Coloured politics at the present time. May I take it that that is open for discussion by other hon. members; apart from the leading speaker on this side?

That depends on the arguments hon. members bring forth. I cannot give a ruling on that point in advance.

I take it, then, that it is not ruled out in advance?

No, not in advance, but subject to the ruling, I have just given.

Mr. Speaker, may I briefly address you for guidance on your ruling? To the extent that a clause in this Bill refers to the failure of the council to do certain things, for whatever reason, I take it that it will be in order to advance historical reasons for the failure of the council to do the certain things?

I have given my ruling as far as that aspect is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with close attention to the reasons advanced by the hon. the Minister for the amendments which he is introducing this afternoon. I must say that I find those reasons most unsatisfactory. I find them unsatisfactory because in his own speech he said that the decision taken, the view expressed, in 1972 was that there should be no fiddling about with this institution unless experience showed it to be necessary. What experience has he had to show that this legislation has become necessary? Has the council ever refused to vote supply? Has the executive ever yet refused to carry out its functions? What reason does the hon. gentleman have for coming forward and saying that the general principle which, he is adopting, is that changes should only be made in the light of experience, while he advances no experience to support these changes? Secondly, the hon. gentleman spoke of their refusal to prepare estimates, of the executive refusing to place estimates before the council and the withholding of delegated powers. But these things have never happened. What is the hon. gentleman so afraid of? When he came to this House in 1972 with changes, he was able to say that he had had discussions with the executive at the time, that he was bringing those changes because of those discussions and consultations and that those changes carried the imprint of the executive concerned. He has not mentioned anything this afternoon about consultation with the executive. Perhaps he will tell me across the floor of the House whether there has been any consultation with the existing executive?

Or with anybody for that matter.

Not a word from him.

Has there been any consultation with the leaders of the party which now has a majority in the CRC? A strong point of the hon. the Minister in the debate of 1972 was precisely that he had consulted with the executive council and that he came to the House for changes with their goodwill. But there has been no mention of consultation this afternoon. I cannot imagine for one moment that he would have failed to mention it had there been consultation and had he got their goodwill and support.

What is the hon. gentleman worried about? He tells us that the things he mentioned may happen. Well, one knows there has been an election and that there has been a change of the party in power in the CRC. But the old executive is still in office and will remain in office until the CRC meets, a new executive is elected and a new chairman is appointed by the State President. He has lots of time; there is no immediate danger of things breaking down. He has an executive he has been working with for some time. Why cannot he delay the introduction of this Bill? Why cannot he adjourn this debate to give him an opportunity to discuss this matter with the party which is now going to assume power in the CRC? He knows very well what the feelings of the Coloured people are at the present time. He knows how this Bill is being regarded; he is hoping to soften the impact by saying he is not going to exercise the legislative powers of the CRC, limited though they are. In any event, no Bill is introduced without the consent of the Minister. However, he is sugaring the pill in this regard. I think that this is a most unsatisfactory situation indeed.

He has sought to justify his position by saying that in section 71 of the Transkei Constitution Act executive powers, authorities and functions vest temporarily in the Minister in the certain circumstances. This Act was also mentioned by the hon. the Leader of the House when he spoke to the motion for leave to introduce this Bill. I have taken the trouble to have a good look at it. The text is as follows—

This is not the full quotation as I have omitted certain words. I do not believe the words that I have omitted alter the meaning; they merely give effect to what the meaning should be. The wording of the heading of this section is: “Executive powers, authorities and functions to vest temporarily in Minister”. The interesting thing about this section is that it refers to all “such” executive powers, etc. I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the word “such”. It seems to me that this reference is obviously to the previous section in the Act, section 70. It seems to me too that this provision deals with the transition period between this Government’s handing over power and that power being assumed by the legislative assembly. It is intended to deal with any breakdown during that transition period. That is completely different from the sort of thing envisaged by the hon. gentlemen at the present time. What he is doing now is to remove the discretion from the council, from the executive and from the chairman to act or not to act. He is deciding whether or not they should act. [Interjections.] Even if they do not act the way he wants them to act, there is nothing he can do except by way of a subsequent veto. However, if they do not act then he can act for them. This is a totally different principle and my submission is that the Transkei Constitution Act is no example to be followed in any event and that this specific provision does not cover the circumstances which the hon. the Minister is trying to cover at the present time.

It is quite obvious, of course, what has been worrying the hon. the Minister. What has been worrying him has been the threat by one of the parties in the recent election for the CRC to close down that Council. The hon. the Minister did not say this; he skated around it and spoke about the present situation in politics among the Coloured people. He knows very well that that is what is at the back of his mind. I do not believe for one moment that he is dealing only with theoretical possibilities. He introduced this legislation on the very day that the election took place because he saw the way things were going and he panicked. Now he is trying to limit this debate to the best of his ability because he is trying to meet the charges that can be brought against him. I want to suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that if there is a failure to act, if there is an attempt to wreck the CRC, to close it down, then the correct sanction lies with the voters who elected the people who try to close down that CRC. If the attitude amongst these people is such that they are carrying out the wishes of the voters, then the hon. the Minister has got to face up to the fact that this is the end of the road for the Coloured Representative Council. He has got to face up to the fact that it has been rejected by the electorate and that there are people coming into power who, if his reading is correct, are not going to co-operate in respect of this matter. [Interjection.]

Order! I expect hon. members to give the hon. the Leader of the Opposition a polite hearing.

Then, Sir, the system has failed and the hon. gentleman has to look to alternatives. Sir, I see no other reason for this measure, except that in the past the Minister was in the position that the executive co-operated, but he feared a hostile majority in the council. That is why he introduced the legislation in 1972. He could come here and say that he claimed support from the executive for what he was doing because they, too, feared a hostile majority in the council. But this time, Sir, he comes, without consultation with the present executive, without consultation with the people who are going to take over power in the Coloured Representative Council and he asks for these additional powers. The problem in the past, as you know, Sir, was that the chairman was nominated by the State President and still is—he is not elected by the council—and that the executive was elected by the council, but it could not be removed from office otherwise than by a two-thirds majority. That meant that if there was a changed majority in the council, unless it could get a two-thirds majority, it could not remove the executive from office, and you would then have an executive in office which did not have the confidence of the council. Sir, that is the position that the hon. the Minister was seeking to deal with in 1972. Now he is in the position that he may have a hostile executive and a hostile council. What is he going to do about that? Sir, let us ask ourselves what the powers, the functions and the duties are which he is seeking to take over. Mr. Speaker, have you looked at them? I wonder if hon. members know how wide those powers and functions are which he is seeking to take over under this Bill. He is seeking to take over all the powers of the executive, i.e. the management of finance and to authorize expenditure by warrant, and the duties of the chairman. Then he is seeking to take over all the functions of the executive, i.e. to exercise the functions of the council except the making of laws, when the council is not in session, and to deal with local government with education, with community welfare and pensions, with the rural areas and with other matters referred to them by the State President and to prepare the estimates of expenditure for submission to the Minister. Sir, he is taking over all the functions of the council except the legislative functions, that is, to serve as a link between the Government and the Coloured population, to acquire and dispose of property, to establish pension schemes for their servants. Imagine it, Sir, these are the functions which the hon. gentleman is seeking to take over. He is seeking in certain circumstances to become the chairman, with the full powers of the chairman; to become the executive, with the full powers of the executive, and to become the Coloured Representative Council itself, excepting only the power to legislate, and only he knows how limited that is because Bills introduced require his approval before they are introduced. Do you know, Sir, this is not self-determination for the Coloured people any more; this is a return to naked baasskap. That is what this means. It is a return to naked baasskap. Unless they do what he wants them to do, he is going to take over and he is going to run the whole business. But, Sir, it seems to me that the very fact that he introduces this legislation, acknowledges the complete breakdown and failure of the system. Sir, it is evidence of a lack of faith, probably a mutual lack of faith, lack of faith by him in the Coloured people and lack of faith by the Coloured people in him and his Government. And this, Sir, is the group which should be nearest to us in South Africa. But what is so interesting is that it is not just finance that is worrying this Minister. He protests in vain that it is just finance that worries him, because there is an alternative he could have adopted. You know, Sir, if a Provincial Council were to refuse to vote money and refuse to pay its servants or to pay out pensions and things of that kind, the Minister could apply for a special State President’s warrant to take over the expenditure and apply to Parliament for approval in due course. That was put to the hon. the Minister in 1972. He did not deny that he had this power. He did not deny that it could be done; he just said it was an unsatisfactory method of doing it. Why? I wonder what has caused this situation to arise, because I do not think that any of us accept that this Bill has been introduced for purely technical reasons. I think what has caused this to arise is that there is clear evidence that the Coloured people have totally rejected Government policy in so far as this Council is concerned. I think that is a disaster of the first magnitude and the extent of that disaster is shown by the majority in the election results. I do not believe this has been caused by internal conflicts or procedural difficulties alone, though heaven knows they have been frustrating enough. I believe that this is the culmination of the deterioration of relations between the Coloured community and the White people in South Africa, or rather between the Coloured people and this Government and not between the Coloured people and all the White people. The Coloured people who lie closest to our conscience have been disillusioned and have been alienated by this Government. Sir, you have ruled quite rightly that one cannot go into the whole history of this dispute, but I do believe that it is right that I should draw attention to the fact that this Coloured Representative Council as it exists today has had a most unfortunate history. One cannot help thinking back of the promise given by Dr. Verwoerd in the 1960s that the Coloured people within 10 years would have their own Prime Minister and would have control over their own affairs. It was never suggested that the Coloured Representative Council was to be in lieu of representation in this House. But, Sir, representation in this House was removed and this is no alternative and the Coloured people know it because no amount of amending, no amount of changes in the legislation by the Government, can put this situation right. I am afraid. Sir, that we have come to the end of the road of this policy and the Government has to answer to the country as to why it has failed.

Now, Sir, I do not believe, as I have said, that it has failed because of prejudice. There were a lot of Coloured people who wanted to make this system work. There are a lot of Coloured people who still want to make the system work, but they have found themselves with a toothless tiger, and why? Because in 1969 when one party had the biggest number of supporters in the council, the Government nominated defeated candidates and people in opposition so as to ensure that an opposition party, not having the majority in the council among the elected representatives, should rule the Coloured people, and the resentment and bitterness caused at that time is, I believe, the cause of the election results we have just had. You see, Sir, the system has cardinal weaknesses and the whole position of the council has been so frustrating. Motion after motion gets referred to the Cabinet. Either there are very long delays or very little happens. It is powerless to combat the most serious grievances which the Coloured people have concerning the Population Registration Act, concerning the Group Areas Act, concerning the shortage of housing, concerning the disparity in wages. It has no powers in those matters. Its Budget is presented—and this is their complaint—often without proper previous consultation. There are many other complaints. It was a Mr. Tom Swartz, nominated by the State President as chairman of the council, who circulated a memorandum of his complaints. It was not a Mr. Sonny Leon, Leader of the Labour Party Opposition. It was the Government’s appointee who complained and gave reasons as to why it was that the council system was breaking down. The Government did nothing to defuse it. They have delayed too long in making the council wholly elected, amongst other things. Now, Sir, how are they going to make it work? Are they going to make it work by the introduction of this amendment? I wonder if the hon. the Minister really thinks that if he has lost the goodwill of the Coloured people to this extent, by introducing this amendment and taking these powers he is going to make this system work. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if he does not realize that if this system does not function, there is going to be a vacuum; and this amendment will not fill that vacuum. It will be filled—because nature abhors a vacuum— by other developments through which the Coloured people will seek to realize their hopes and their aspirations. But the danger exists that the methods they use may become unconstitutional through the frustrations that have arisen.

Disgraceful! [Interjections ]

All my information, as I have warned before in this House … [Interjections.]

Sis!

The hon. gentleman says it is disgraceful. It is disgraceful that this situation has arisen.

Order! Did the hon. member for Carletonville say “sis”?

Yes, Mr.

Speaker. I withdraw it.

All my information is that the mood among the Coloured people is becoming ugly indeed and that they regard this whole business as nothing more than another example of discrimination on the grounds of the colour of their skin. We have stated our alternatives before. Our federal plan has been before the House. Quite rightly, Sir, it is not open for discussion at this time. But, Sir, it is an alternative, a very realistic alternative, one which we believe would work. But what alternatives are there within the framework of the Government’s policy? If they persist in this unitary system, then I believe the only alternatives they have are to return to direct representation in this House or, alternatively—and it is a bad alternative—to nominate Coloureds to represent Coloureds as nominated Senators in the Senate for their knowledge of Coloured affairs.

What about the federal system?

The hon. member asks: “What about the federal system?” I have said that my choice is the federal system, but the Government will not accept it. Now what alternatives has the Government got within the framework of its policy, not my policy? This policy of the Government is a very bad second.

Order! Hon. members should have listened to my ruling and should not ask questions which contravene my ruling.

Mr. Speaker, I think there are some obvious steps in regard to the council itself that the Government should take. I do not believe it is going to make this system work by further emasculating the council, because that is what this legislation is doing. I believe that they have a chance of getting co-operation if there is proper consultation and if meaningful powers are given to this council, and given to it rapidly. I believe they must expedite the date when it becomes completely elected. I believe they must introduce machinery to ensure that the executive is totally responsible to a majority in the council and not to a two-thirds majority. I believe the council must be given taxing powers. I believe there must be liaison with Parliament and not just with the Executive through a liaison or Cabinet Committee as indicated at the present time. I believe the situation is so serious that there should be a request for an immediate interim report from the Theron Commission. It is quite dear that the proposed Cabinet Committee has had little if any effect on the electorate and that it is not acceptable to them.

I wonder if the hon. the Minister has considered that the introduction of this Bill on the very day on which the election was taking place has been and will be seen as a deliberate act of provocation by this Government in respect of the Coloured people, a slap in the face for them. This is an act which can have the most serious repercussions, because the Coloured people are not an isolated group; they are very much, an integral part of our interlocking racial structure. What happens to them affects other groups in South Africa and the whole population of the country. This sort of thing could lead to a common rejection of the Government’s race policies. There is already trouble with the urban Bantu. The homeland leaders do not want to take independence. If they make common cause it will be this Minister who will have created not a local squall but a gale that can storm all over the country.

I have pleaded before in this House for a new deal for the Coloured people which would make this sort of legislation unnecessary. I pleaded that in order to obtain their trust and confidence it was essential not to make dispositions for them, but to make dispositions with them. Secondly, I said that it would not be accepted that discrimination based on the assumption of inherent and persistent inequalities based on racial differences were acceptable. I warned before that an election held on the basis on which the last election was held, would solve absolutely nothing at all, and that because of its inherent weaknesses the council would remain unworkable and unacceptable I believe only unequivocal acceptance by the Government that social and economic discrimination must be removed, and a new dispensation, would give us an opportunity of having harmonious relations.

What can the Government do? I have asked the question before. The Government has alternative constitutional methods. But in practical terms, what should it do in respect of this Bill? I believe the statesmanlike thing, the right thing, would be for the Minister to agree to the adjournment of this debate for him to consult with the majority party which is going to take over power in the CRC. I believe that would be the statesmanlike thing to do and I feel sure that if that were done, despite the election propaganda, a compromise and understanding could be reached which could result in the more harmonious functioning of this piece of constitutional machinery, however bad it is. I believe that the Government should accept that in making its nominations under the Act—it has the power to make 20 nominations—it should have regard to the will of the electorate and not do what it did last time, namely to nominate entirely opposition members in the council. The hon. the Minister nods his head and I hope that means that there is agreement in this regard. I believe that if this debate were adjourned and if it could stand over for discussion to take place, an accommodation could be reached and that an assurance could be obtained that efforts would be made by the majority party to make this system work even if it is used as a platform to try to advance claims of another kind. I am in a stronger position than the hon. the Minister because I have consulted and have talked to the gentlemen concerned. I have talked to them quite considerably and I believe that what I am suggesting and asking is something which is well worth exploration. I warned once before that we, at the present time, may be dealing with the last generation of negotiators amongst the Coloured people in South Africa. The younger people do not think any more as some of the older people do, those in our age group. They do not want to negotiate. We may be dealing with the last generation of negotiators. Time is not on the Government’s side and time is not on the side of the White people in South Africa. I wonder if the hon. the Minister has considered, before he introduced this legislation, what the effect of this Bill is going to be on the outside world. Has he considered what effect it will have on the people of the Western world who are supporting South Africa? I wonder if he realized how those people react to a Government which tells a people that while it gives them certain powers, if those powers are not exercised and if the people do not do what the Government thinks they ought to be doing, the Government will resume control and take over the whole system itself. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister has considered what effect this could have on the Prime Minister’s attempts to achieve detente in Southern Africa. Has the hon. the Minister realized what an amendment of this kind, a resumption of power, a return to naked baasskap, could mean outside South Africa? I think the hon. the Minister knows that nothing short of full citizenship, on one basis or another, is going to satisfy the Coloured people. I think he must also realize that this Bill is the final manifestation of the breakdown of Government policy and the clearest indication that Government policy cannot accommodate the legitimate aspirations and hopes of the Coloured people. I feel that if the hon. the Minister is not prepared to consider the possibility of adjourning this debate, there is only one amendment I can move, and that is—

Mr. Speaker, it is a long time since I have heard a leader of a party talking so much political nonsense as the Leader of the Opposition talked here this afternoon. At the end of his speech the hon. the Leader of the Opposition intimated that he was in consultation with the leaders of the Labour Party, the majority party after the recent CRC election. He intimated that he now knew exactly what was going on there. The result of the CRC election that has just been held is that the Labour Party has won an outright majority, not only in regard to elected members, but also in regard to the overall membership of the CRC.

Sixty-one percent.

There is nothing in that election to console either the United Party, or him as its leader. I shall tell him why. On more than one occasion, if I can believe my ears, the leader of the Labour Party has stated that he regards himself and his party as the true opposition in South Africa. In other words, he does differ with the Government as regards his policy, but he definitely holds the gentlemen in the parties opposite in the greatest contempt. Consequently there is nothing in the outcome of this election to console hon. members opposite. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked why the hon. the Minister—in the light of the experience to which he referred— came up with this legislation, and he even asked this question quite seriously. This is the question of a true Rip van Winkle, because anyone who has watched the developments in the CRC over the past few years knows exactly why the hon. the Minister has come up with this legislation. It is the Government, and specifically of the Minister to whom this portfolio has been entrusted, to provide for all circumstances and for all possible events by means of legislation. Since the CRC plays a very important role in regard to the administration of the Coloured population it is the Minister’s duty and responsibility to ensure that the necessary statutory powers exist to ensure that that administration does not collapse. Now it is pointless to come and tell us today that this is an inferior body. The fact remains that the CRC already fulfils a very important function and that this Council has already been built up into a body which occupies an important place in our domestic affairs, particularly as far as the Coloured population is concerned. It is pointless to demolish the CRC because it already exists. If the leaders of the party with the greatest number of elected representatives in that Council say from time to time that they are going to destroy that Council, that they are going to break it down, that they are going to prevent it from carrying out its functions, or when they boycott the opening ceremony of that House—in spite of the fact that prominent people perform that ceremony—and when they boycott important decisions and debates in the House, the question whether these people intend to continue with that attitude still remains. For that reason, responsible Coloured leaders have placed a question mark over the whole situation, because they know what they have been doing, the responsibilities they have already carried and the duties they have already had to perform. They simply could not see the interests of the Coloured population being properly served in that way. The hon. the Minister and the Government, would be failing in their duty if, in these circumstances, they failed to spot those problems, take cognizance of them and, with the aid of his legal advisers, make provision for them.

Did the executive request this legislation?

The hon. member might as well listen a little. He will have a turn to speak later. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition repeated the verdict he uttered during the First Reading. He said: “This is the end of the road for the CRC.” To the hon. the Leader of the Opposition and to hon. members opposite I want to say that if I were to make a prediction today, it would be that he is wrong. If hon. members read the newspapers, they will have seen that it was the English Press itself which intimated that there had been a change of attitude among the leaders of the Labour Party. It has been said this weekend that there is a new approach and now they are intimating that it seems as if these people are not going to adopt the course which we had foreseen they would and which certain people tried to talk them into. Part of the problem is that there are certain people, certain bodies, certain members on that side of the House and certain newspapers that have tried to talk these people into the destruction of the CRC. [Interjections.] The hon. the Leader of the Opposition said this during the First Reading and the hon. the Leader of the Progressive Party said it. Since the hon. member has repeated it two or three times today, I want to say that they are in fact disappointed because they did not succeed in talking these people into continuing to take the line that they would destroy the CRC.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to reply to a question. Consequently I want to tell hon. members opposite that their assumptions are incorrect. Let us take a brief look at the outcome of the recent election. It will interest hon. members to know what the percentage poll was in the Cape Peninsula where the majority of Coloureds are living. The people here are close to the polling booths, read the newspapers and are well-informed. In fact, they are probably the most informed group, together with the Coloured groups in Port Elizabeth, Durban, etc. In Tafelberg the percentage poll was 26,7%, in Strandfontein it was 18.48%, in Liesbeek 12%, in Heideveld 20,5% and in Kasselsvlei 31%.

Why do they not vote?

We may speculate on that, but we cannot provide the exact answer. My first reply would be that these people are not as politically aware as hon. members opposite think they are.

Oh no!

Order!

Perhaps that is one answer. Another answer is perhaps that they say they do not like the CRC. [Interjections.] After the Coloureds, in these times of political awareness, have been urged and led for months to come and, particularly by means of an emotional cry from which the anti-White feeling among the Labour Party was not entirely lacking, the percentage polls were only 26%, 18%, 12%, 20%, etc. That is why I want to say that the Leaders of the Labour Party did not succeed in instilling in the people their idea of confrontation. I want to add that that result tells me that many responsible Coloureds in the Western Province and throughout the country said: “Politics is important but it is not as important to us as it is to the United Party and the Progressive Party who need our votes.”

Hear, hear! You have hit the nail on the head!

If only such a small percentage of people vote in the Cape Peninsula, then this tells me something else. These people are telling us in this way that there are other needs which are even more important to them than an election. The things that weigh heavily upon them every day are, for example, the elementary requirements of education opportunities, schools for their children, proper housing, floodwater drainage for their streets, etc. I am not saying that the overall attitudes of the Coloured population are shortly going to swing in favour of the Federal Party or some other party. As a population group the Coloureds are fully entitled to establish their parties. What is more, their Council has been established on a democratic basis. Therefore the various parties will win and lose elections as the Coloured population may decide at the polling booths. However what we and the leaders of the Labour Party too, must bear in mind—and they realize this because their attitude shows it—is that they are now in a position in which they will achieve absolutely nothing by means of negative action, a boycott or destructive action. That is why the leader of the Labour Party is now prepared to say that his confrontation means something else. He is now telling the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Progressive Party: “You understood me incorrectly. You told the world that I was aiming at violent confrontation. To me, confrontation means dialogue with the Government.”

But it is you who took fright. [Interjections.]

Let me just remind hon. members what the standpoint is of the leader of the Labour Party, Mr. Leon, according to a report in Die Burger. I quote (translation)—

Why, then, have you come up with this Bill? Withdraw the Bill.

I repeat that the hon. the Minister does not want to have this legislation passed for the purpose of a specific event or contingency. The purpose of legislation is to ensure continuing law and order.

Why Wednesday?

I can tell you why it was Wednesday. It is not, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said, that the hon. the Minister realized then what was going to happen. How could the hon. the Minister have realized on Wednesday what was going to happen? At that stage he had not seen any results.

Mere coincidence.

Surely hon. members know that legislation introduced in Parliament on a specific day has not been prepared that same morning. I think the Executive advised the hon. the Minister that they were going to lose the election. I take it that as responsible people, they could have advised that. If they had advised that and said that the leaders of the Labour Party had a negative attitude and would therefore try to create a dispensation in which chaos would prevail and which would render it impossible to continue with the administration, then it was the duty of the Government to make the necessary provision for this eventuality. If the leaders of the Labour Party were now to say: “We are prepared to sit around a table and we are prepared to discuss matters in a responsible way,” then we should welcome it. That is nothing new and Mr. Leon need not ask that nor claim it. The hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. the Minister have repeatedly offered that. The Coloured leaders have been invited repeatedly and have, on one occasion, attended talks, if I am not mistaken. However, in the past year there were many more occasions than the single one at which they spoke. I can say without fear of contradiction that the doors of the hon. the Prime Minister and the Minister will be open for them to come and discuss their problems.

However, what the Leader of the Opposition is trying to make us believe about this situation, does not exist. The hon. the Minister did not introduce this legislation because he realized which way the wind was blowing on election day. Any statement of that kind is political nonsense. The hon. member is a responsible person who ought to know that this legislation was prepared weeks or even months ago. It was introduced on that day so that it could not have an effect on the election and so as not to antagonize the people in advance. Hon. members who know something about the working of Parliament ought to know that that is so. For this reason I want to tell the hon. members that their prophecies and their attitude are absolutely hollow. What they have predicted, does not happen. I think that it is a matter of concern to them today to have this debate continue because the Coloured leaders—and the leaders of the Labour Party, too—are now telling us: “We realize that we have now had an election and that we have won, but we, too, have responsibilities to carry out.” They are looking forward to it and the Leader of the Labour Party has said that he demands to be nominated as the chairman of the Executive.

Is he going to be appointed?

I quote the following to hon. members (translation)—

In my opinion, Mr. Leon has every right to ask that. It is not for me to say what the hon. the Minister or the hon. the Prime Minister or the Government is going to do, but in my opinion Mr. Leon has every right to ask that. But the disappointment for that side of the House lies in the fact that Mr. Leon now states that he is prepared to serve as chairman of the Executive, whereas they were triumphantly saying, “We have reached the end of the road.”

Who said that?

The hon. the Leader of the Progressive Party said that, and the hon. the Leader of the Opposition repeated it. They were looking forward to it, and now Mr. Leon of the Labour Party asks the Government to appoint him as chairman of the Executive. In other words he is saying: “Here I am; I have won the election. Forget about the propaganda I employed; it was a political election. I used those things which were to my benefit and I won, but now I am prepared to serve.” Sir, that is where we stand. But even though the leader of the Labour Party is now entirely willing to accept his responsibility—and we welcome that—then I still say that since the hon. the Minister’s legal advisers have told him that there is a deficiency in the Act, in that there are no statutory powers providing for the introduction and implementation of a budget if such a situation were to arise, it is his responsibility to ensure that that statutory basis should exist at all times, whatever may happen and whenever it may happen. I say that that is entirely correct. Sir, whereas hon. members opposite have been making such an attempt to play politics with this situation, I want to tell them a few things: I find it very striking that these days the attitude of hon. members opposite has been very negative and that they actually wanted a collapse of the Coloured Persons Representative Council. When I look back, and when I look into the future, then I see that that party’s policy makes no contribution towards really putting the Coloured population on its own two feet. I want to put this question to them: what is their objection to the principle forming part of the policy of the National Party, that the Coloured population should be put in a position to govern itself?

That is not happening.

They are being granted that opportunity, and if the hon. member has eyes to see, then he can see it even now.

It has taken 27 years.

I want to ask that hon. member whether the Coloureds governed themselves before 1948. Probably he is still a little young to know what things were like before 1948, but when the Coloureds had a few White representatives in this House, did they then, through those few Whites, have an opportunity to be self-governing?

Where is their homeland?

Order! The hon. member must abide by my ruling.

Sir, I shall abide by your ruling. Sir, that is where we stand today. This legislation and the Government’s policy are based on this, that whereas we have diversity of nations, we are working towards national government, in which each nation will govern itself.

Where?

That is a very stupid question. Where in the world can one find a country where there is peace and order where many nations with divergent cultures and divergent levels of development live together in peace?

“Current Affairs.”

What became of the federation in Rhodesia for which hon. members on that side had so much praise? Where is a situation like that to be found in the world today? We need not go back to the past. Sir, the Government’s policy, and this legislation, too, proceeds on the assumption that the Coloureds have both the right and the duty to govern their own people and their own nation and to govern on this basis.

And in their own area.

And each in his own area.

Where?

The entire group areas pattern also provides for this; that will be the result of this. It is a pattern that is developing to an increasing extent, and we therefore foresee that whether it be the Labour Party that is governing or whether it be the Federal Party in power in the CRC, the Coloureds will accept their responsibility to an increasing extent. I have already indicated this to you, Sir, on the basis of the evidence of the leaders of the Labour Party. If we are to tell them anything, then it is not, as the hon. the Leader of the Opposition states, that the CRC and this dispensation has collapsed and that this is the end of the road. On the contrary. Then we must convey another message to them. Then we must tell them: We accept your right to put in power whichever party you may elect. But what is more, we must tell them that they must not only practise politics, that that is not the only facet of life, but that it is also their responsibility to look at the questions and the problems of the Coloured population and to solve them themselves. Sir, let us just take a look at this one cardinal question, the question of a too rapid population increase among the Coloureds. This affects the entire infrastructure. It affects education, because schools have to be provided for those people. It affects the provision of housing, and all those things. Within 15 years—that is the lifetime of a generation in the Coloured population— the 15-year old is already beginning to multiply. After all, we know this. This is a problem for the Coloured population if they want to uplift the standard of living of their people. Then they must say: Let us discuss this and let us work towards family planning and a decent standard of living; let us assist our people in overcoming these things. I say that these are basic matters and if we start there, then as far as education is concerned, we shall have fewer schools, having to work two shifts per day, and in some schools, as much as three shifts.

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

I say that the hon. the Minister is introducing this legislation in order to ensure that order will continue to be maintained whenever and wherever the opposite may crop up. That is why we endorse it and that is why we are convinced that whereas the leaders of the Coloured population are accepting this responsibility, this will signify progress for the Coloured population in the years that lie ahead.

The hon. member who has just resumed his seat, tried to score a few petty political points from the remarks made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, but added nothing significant himself to the many unconvincing introductory arguments advanced by the hon. the Minister. The hon. member, as well as the hon. the Minister, said that we have here an administration which they presume will collapse or come to a standstill one of these days, but there is no question of their reconsidering or reviewing that system. Their solution for this problem is simply that the White Government should take over that system. He also referred to the low percentage of Coloured persons who had voted in the Cape, especially in the urban areas of Cape Town—approximately 20% or even less. He said a likely reason for this was that these people are not politically aware. Sir, it is precisely because they are politically aware that they will have nothing to do with a system which brands them as second-rate citizens. They will have nothing to do with such a system and the CRC is the embodiment of that stamp which has been placed on them. [Interjections.] The hon. member said the Leader of the Opposition was talking nonsense when he said that because this legislation was introduced on the day of the election, the Government knew beforehand what the result of the election was going to be. He says this is nonsense. I just want to say to the hon. member that to introduce this legislation on that day was not political nonsense, but political fraud towards the Coloured voters of the Cape, because while they were voting, the constitution of that council was changed behind their backs by the White Parliament. Therefore, this legislation, even if amendments were to be effected later on, is still not acceptable to us in these benches.

†The amendment referred to by the Minister has made it less bad, because it has limited the area of control of the Minister. The Bill is nevertheless unacceptable. The whole problem arises from the inability or the unwillingness of this Government to face up to the failure of their policy. Hon. members opposite keep on stressing administrative problems, and saying that the administrative situation might fall apart. But it is not an administrative problem. This is the result of a political problem. It is the result of the hon. members on the other side of the House trying to force a policy upon the Coloured people which they have rejected. They have rejected it in an open election which was conducted on the terms stated by the Government. Now the Government, instead of accepting the verdict of the election conducted in terms of Government policy, is running away from the verdict of the Coloured people. It is not a question of an administrative problem. The issue at the moment is a political failure. This Bill must be seen not as an administrative measure, but as a political measure flowing from the failure of Government policy.

We in these benches opposed the introduction of this Bill last week. Our suspicion at that stage were that this was going to be a thoroughly bad Bill Having seen the Bill, let me say to the hon. the Minister that our worst suspicions have been confirmed, for the Bill, if anything, is worse than its original introductory title would indicate. I believe that the Bill, to say the least, is cynical for what it does and for the occasion on which it was introduced. It is dictatorial. But what is perhaps more important at this stage, it reflects a complete insensitivity towards the attitudes and feelings of the Coloured people who voted in the election. The only aspect which the hon. the Minister left vague in giving notice of the Bill, and which may have, subject to some further information contained in the Bill, been a partially redeeming feature, was that the original motion to introduce referred to the taking over of power “in certain circumstances”. We now find that these “certain circumstances” relate to powers which the hon. the Minister will decide whether he should take over. It will be his own decision and in his own discretion that he will decide whether he will exercise these tremendous powers. The hon. Minister of Indian Affairs and of Tourism said that there might be some reason of which we are not aware. This reason has not become apparent now that we have the full text of the Bill. When the Coloured people refuse to make the system operate, this hon. Minister will still take over the system and ram it down their throats. That is what this Bill is about. If there is a failure on their part to operate the system, the White Parliament will take over. The hon. the Minister is now in the position that he will become the sole administering authority over the lives of 2¼ million Coloured people, and he is going to be the sole arbiter or judge as to whether he should assume these powers. It is in his discretion to do so if, for whatever reasons, they have failed to exercise these duties.

Both in introducing this Bill and during the short debate of last week, reference was made on the Government side to the fact that it was necessary to keep certain services running. In this connection I can only refer to section 22, subsections (2) and (2A). Not only is provision made for money which has been appropriated to continue to be administered, but there is also provision in subsection (2A) for any service which had been included in a previous Budget to continue to operate under the edict of the Minister. So he already has the power to continue to operate services where there was provision for such service in any previous Budget or appropriation. He therefore has adequate powers, and indeed more than adequate powers, to deal with an immediate administrative problem which might arise. The hon. the Minister shakes his head. He knows that his problem is not an administrative one. He knows that his problem is the collapse of a system. It is the collapse of the CRC as an instrument of Government fashioned by the National Party and the Government.

Before continuing with the details of this Bill, I must refer very briefly to the debate of the other day and in particular to a comment which was made by the hon. member for Durban Point who indicated that the Progressive Party and others who opposed the introduction of this Bill had by their opposition forfeited their right to speak at the Second Reading. In view of the statement by that hon. member I think that it is necessary to record that there is a long list of Bills—some 12 of them—dating back to 1958 until 1968, all of which were opposed by the hon. member’s party at the First Reading and in all of which the hon. members on that side of the House participated at Second Reading. In particular, in the case of the Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act of 1968, which was opposed at First Reading, of 12 speakers who spoke for the United Party, one of them was the hon. member for Durban Point himself.

Order! The hon. member must observe my ruling.

Apart from this Bill being a thoroughly bad piece of legislation, it is, if passed, in our opinion going to do tremendous harm to the already strained relations which exist between the Coloured and the White communities. What is more, at a time when the Western world and many states in Africa are looking hopefully and even expectantly for some signs that the Government is going to implement its commitment to get rid of race discrimination, for those people who have listened to Mr. Pik Botha or to the hon. the Prime Minister, it will be a shattering disappointment that a Bill of this type should have been introduced. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was correct. It is undoubtedly going to embarrass our friends in the Western world; it is undoubtedly going to play into the hands of the enemies of South Africa and I believe it could do serious damage to the whole détente operation in which our Government is at present engaged. I believe it is ironic that on the very day that this Bill was introduced, the hon. member for Pretoria Central was telling the Juridicial Union of Stellenbosch University that certain important sections in relation to the Lusaka Manifesto, previously rejected by the Government, were now becoming acceptable to the Nationalist Party. On that very day he was reading out extracts of that manifesto which relate closely to this Bill and he said the following: “We, the National Party, believe with the Lusaka Manifesto that all men have the right and duty to participate as equal members in the society and in their own Government. We do not accept that any individual or group has the right to govern over any other group of sane adults without their consent”. On the same day that the hon. member made that statement, this hon. Minister was introducing a Bill into this House where a single individual of one race group, in terms of the Government’s race categories, was going to take over the administration and the government of two and a quarter million people in South Africa. This Bill is in essence a discriminatory piece of legislation. It is no use talking about removing discrimination in the peripheral fields. What we and this Government must do is to remove discrimination in the important fields, namely the administration of government in South Africa.

Order! The hon. member for Mossel Bay is conversing aloud too much.

It is quite clear that whether the Government had advance notice of the possible outcome of the CRC election, the Government was clearly anticipating that the result of that election could well be that the CRC, or the executive of that council, or the chairman of its executive, would cease to function effectively. It must have anticipated this, for if it did not anticipate it, there could be no reason for having introduced this Bill. The fact is that it introduced this Bill while voting was taking place and so it must have realized that the Federal Party, which had been ruling for the past four years with the help of 20 members nominated by the Government, were going to lose that election. Secondly, and what is perhaps more important, the Government must have interpreted the anticipated result of the election as a vote of no-confidence by the Coloured people in the CRC. It must have sensed that this was what the election was about. Hon. members on the other side realized that the key issue in that election was whether the CRC should be considered as an effective means of providing the Coloured people with political expression or not. I believe the onus was on the Government to consult with the chairman and with the executive of the CRC prior to taking any steps to legislate in matters affecting that council. The Minister has not replied in specific terms to the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to indicate whether he did get that advice and whether it was the advice of the executive committee of the CRC that apartheid was going to be condemned by the Coloured people on 19 March and that the CRC was going to be rejected by the Coloured people or not. When one takes into account the very small number of votes cast for the Federal Party, which was the only party at that stage openly supporting the system of separate representation and separate political institutions, in spite of the fact that in recent years it has come out against race discrimination, when one realizes that the Federal Party obtained less than 16% of the votes, when one realizes the very few votes it obtained in the important Cape urban areas, when one realizes what a large number of voters stayed away from the polls in the areas of relatively high sophistication as far as the Coloured people are concerned, one is forced to realize that the election on the 19th of this month was a massive indictment of the Government’s policy. It was a rejection of the policy of apartheid as applied by this Government and it was a vote specifically directed against the continuation of the CRC. Whatever this Government may think of the CRC, I believe that the Coloured people themselves see the CRC as a symbol of their rejection by the White man in South Africa. They see it was a symbol of the second-class citizenship which the Government confers on them. Whether the Government likes it or not, they see that institution as a symbol of the baasskap which is implicit in the political system which the Government is attempting to force on the Coloured people. This is how they see the CRC. This is what the election was all about. It was a rejection of separate development, or parallel development as the Government would call it, it was a rejection of the baasskap which is inherent in the system which has been applied over the years. One can look at the manifestoes of Labour Party candidates. It was not, as the hon. member for Piketberg suggested, a campaign of people saying that the voting should be anti-White. It was a campaign of people saying that the voting should be anti-apartheid. I think the hon. member should realize that there is a vast difference between being anti-White and being antiapartheid. I would hope that there are many Whites who are anti-apartheid without turning against their own community. I have before me the manifesto of a successful candidate, Mr. Adams, issued in the Kasselsvlei constituency. The key points he made in his manifesto are the following:

1. (a) That all South Africans have an equal and rightful share in all councils of the land;
2. (b) That all persons be regarded as full citizens with the immediate removal of barriers stopping advancement.

Qualified franchise too.

Let us get rid of anything which denies the dignity of the individual South African. The manifesto continues as follows:

1. (c) The systematic abolition of the CRC and the introduction of one Parliament for all the people of the Republic.

This is the manifesto of the candidate who defeated the acting chairman of the executive of the CRC. This is the trend, this is the attitude and this is the way the Coloured people voted. They were not voting for a lot of highly complicated political formulae amongst various parties. They were voting for and against apartheid. They were voting for first-class citizenship for themselves and for the other people of the Black communities of South Africa. What has been demonstrated already in the short introduction we have had to this debate, is that this Government seems to be unable to understand the needs of the Coloured people even at this time. They still talk of administrative failures. Does the Minister not realize that there has been a total rejection of apartheid by the Coloured people in this election? Does he not realize that they do not want the CRC to be built up and strengthened? On this point I disagree with the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. They want the CRC to be phased out. They do not want to improve the CRC so that it can apply apartheid on them with greater comfort. They want the CRC to be phased out so that they can be recognized as full citizens of the country in which they live and to which they belong. This Bill which is before the House is a negation of the very essence of the parliamentary or representative system of government, because it tells the Coloured people that they will either accept our terms of governing themselves or we will govern over them. They must accept our terms or nothing at all. This is a repudiation of the undertakings which were given by the leaders of the National Party, that more and more rights were going to be given to the Coloured people, because implicit in this Bill is the taking away rather than the extension of political rights. This Bill says that if “the chairman of the executive, the executive or the council fails, for whatever reason, to exercise” their powers, the Minister may exercise those powers. I must abide by the ruling from the Chair that one cannot go into the history of the Coloured representation in this House; so I shall confine myself to the history of Coloured representation in the CRC—with which this Bill is dealing and on which the last Coloured Council election was fought. When one looks at the history of the political rights of the Coloureds or the taking away of these rights since this council was first introduced, one finds that every step that has been taken by this Government—no matter what the motive of the Minister might have been, no matter what the well intended motive of the ex-Chief Whip might have been—was in defiance of the wishes of the Coloured people. Almost every step that they took was in defiance of the wishes of the Coloured people, and this was bitterly resented by the Coloured people because it did not express their desires, their wishes or their views. Almost every step which was taken resulted in more resentment, more frustration and more alienation—not just between the Government and the Coloured people, but also between the Coloured people and the wider White community. When this council was first constituted prior to 1969, at the time of the first election, we had a Coloured council with extremely limited powers operating under the supervision and control of an all-White Parliament. At the very first election of that Coloured council the party with a minority of seats—though on the aggragate it drew the majority of votes—was assisted in governing by the appointment of 13 out of the 20 candidates who were rejected at that election. The Government could have found other candidates and other people, but they actually went to the defeated candidates and even made one of these defeated candidates the chairman of the executive.

Order! The hon. member must observe my ruling as far as recounting the history of this council is concerned.

Mr. Speaker, I understood that your ruling was on Coloured representation in this House and not in the Coloured council.

The history of the representation in this House and in other institutions.

Well, then I can only go back to the position the hon. the Minister dealt with and that is that in 1972 the Government came to this House to amend the Act in order to provide for certain powers to appropriate money and to dissolve the council without the council itself requesting it. Each one of the acts of the Government over the past few years in relation to the CRC has added to the growing alienation between the Coloured people and the White community. What is being done in this Bill is in direct conflict with what the Prime Minister said would happen. The Prime Minister has said: “The entire Parliament can take pride that now for the first time in history substantial powers have in fact been conferred on the Coloureds.” In the motion of censure in 1970, the hon. the Prime Minister said that the Coloureds appreciated that institution and the powers that they had received, that they would appreciate the powers and the privileges they had been granted. If one looks at the hon. the Prime Minister’s speeches or at the speeches of the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations, one finds the announcement time and time again that the Coloured people are happy and are starting to accept the system. So, I can well understand the shock to this Government when it dawned on them a few weeks before the election that the Coloured people did not like the system, that they rejected apartheid and the CRC as an instrument of their political rights.

The question is: Where do we go from here? Where does this Government go from here? Are they prepared to review their policy? Are they prepared to re-examine the whole question of the CRC? Are they prepared to say that although they have meant well, they have made a mistake? Are they prepared to say that they will accept the “volkswil” of the Coloured people as far as their own institutions are concerned? What the Government is saying with this measure is: “If you do not accept the council on the terms that we dictate to you, we are going to take it over and run it ourselves.” It is not saying that it is prepared to review the situation; it is saying: “If you are not prepared to accept apartheid on our terms, we shall impose it on you; if you are not prepared to help us make the CRC work, we shall make it work for you.” I believe that the philosophy of “what we shall do to you” is quite untenable in South Africa in 1975. It is this philosophy that is going to lead South Africa to conflict. What we want is a philosophy of reconciliation and negotiation and not one of strong-arm and dictatorial methods to force underprivileged communities to accept the dictates of this Government. I believe that at this moment in time it is important for all of us not to underestimate the importance of the decision of the Coloured people in South Africa last Wednesday. I believe that that decision was a momentous one with far-reaching implications for all race communities in South Africa. I believe that this Government and, with it, White South Africa, must crash through the emotional race barrier which it has erected in front of itself and accept the immutable fact that, in the absence of viable homelands where the Coloureds could, if they so wished, exercise the rights of self-determination and full citizenship, there is only one alternative and that is that they must share sovereignty and citizenship as they share the country with us.

Tell us about the swimming bath in Sea Point.

We say this without reservation. We believe that this will have to be applied in South Africa in the social, the economic and in the political field. One can argue about the steps we should take to get there, but I believe that there is an inevitability about this. I hope that the 19 March 1975 will force hon. members on that side to face up to the fact that, if they do not have a homeland the only alternative is a shared South Africa, a shared society, and all that goes with it.

On the basis of a qualified vote?

That means direct representation in the sovereign Parliament which rules over the shared South Africa. It means representation in whatever sovereign Parliament there is on the same basis as Whites and on the same basis as any other citizens who have common citizenship in a shared South Africa. We are not arguing that the road towards that goal will be short or that there will be no difficulties, but I believe that, instead of introducing dictatorial, negative, conflict-orientated measures such as the hon. the Minister has introduced today, the Government should take a first small step in the other direction. Let it admit that it is wrong and that it does not have a moral, philosophical, ethical or realistic basis on which to build the future in respect of the political rights of the Coloured people. The Government should take the first step towards saying: “In the absence of an alternative, we will face up to full citizenship and to the sharing of power between all the people who live in the shared South Africa.” I hope the hon. the Prime Minister will take the first step, which should be a frank, man-to-man meeting between the Prime Minister and Mr. Sonny Leon, the elected majority leader in the CRC.

That is exactly what we want to do; do you not understand that?

I used the words “frank, man-to-man meeting” advisedly because I believe that at such a meeting the Prime Minister should try to forget the difference between the vast statutory power he has and the very limited statutory power which Mr. Sonny Leon has.

Are you trying to tell Sonny Leon what to do?

They should meet as citizens who at this moment in time, I believe, have an equal concern for their common future and an equal stake in trying to avoid conflict in South Africa. I think that that should be the approach and not the approach we have had before of an all-powerful Prime Minister talking down to other people. I believe it should be a frank man-to-man meeting between people who have an equal stake in and an equal concern for the future of South Africa. Secondly, I believe the hon. the Prime Minister should say without any further delay that he accepts the verdict of the Coloured people. I believe he should say he accepts the verdict of the Coloured people. Whatever his views might be in regard to what is good for the Coloured people, he should accept the fact that the Coloured people have without any equivocation rejected his system and rejected the CRC. He must say that he is prepared to reconsider, to re-examine and, if necessary, to scrap this system in order to try to find common ground between himself and the Coloured people.

Double-talker.

Order! The hon. member for Carletonville must withdraw the word “double-talker”.

I withdraw it, Sir. I thought it was a current term.

Finally, as a result of the election on the 19th of this month, I believe that the hon. the Prime Minister must abandon his commitment to a Whites only sovereign Parliament for the shared parts of South Africa. I believe he must abandon this commitment because it does not make sense. It does not make sense to say that we believe in a Whites only sovereign Parliament when its subjects are Black and Brown and White. For a shared South Africa he must abandon the concept of a Whites only Parliament. When he negotiates with the Coloured people, he must say what the executive council of the Nationalist Party said in South West Africa: We will go to the negotiating table and be prepared to explore all alternatives. We are not going to the negotiating table with an irrevocable commitment to any aspects of our policy. The hon. member for Yeoville and myself questioned the hon. the Prime Minister last year on what his attitude would be should the Theron Commission recommend a shared Parliament in South Africa, but the hon. the Prime Minister ran away from the question. The hon. the Prime Minister hid behind the Theron Commission and said that it was National Party policy at that moment to have a sovereign White Parliament. That policy was made by the Nationalist Party congress. I want to ask the hon. the Prime Minister to say that in in the special circumstances he is prepared to go to his congress and to give it a lead. He should say to them that, whatever the past has been, as far as the future is concerned we are going to work and negotiate together, Black, White and Brown people, for a common and a shared Parliament in South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I can understand that the hon. member for Sea Point must be a very disappointed man. That is why he has gone searching around in the past and why he has been a prophet of doom this afternoon. On 18 October the hon. member said (translation)—

That was on 18 October last year. Since then we have had a session of the CRC and we have just had an election of this same Council. Consequently this Council still exists. Now that hon. member comes here this afternoon and poses as an authority on politics. He tells us that he knows why the Coloureds did not vote for this Council. He maintains that they did not vote for this Council because it was supposedly a second-rate body. Does he want to maintain that the Coloureds who did vote for this Council are inferior? Does he want to maintain that they voted for this Council although it was a second-rate body? Does he want to maintain that those people who stood as candidates for election to this Council, stood for election to a second-rate body? Is this not a charge he is making against the Coloureds this afternoon? Is he not saying these things to the discredit of these people? The hon. member went further and accused us of political fraud. That hon. member must kindly refrain from judging us by his standards.

I want to contend this afternoon that many Coloureds did not vote in the recent election because they were more concerned about their unfavourable socio-economic conditions, conditions which we are continually attending to and which we shall eliminate. The hon. member also said that this legislation was not an administrative measure, but a political measure. Does the hon. member not want to remove his political spectacles for once in his life so that he, too, may see things clearly, as they are and in their correct perspective? The hon. member levelled the accusation that the hon. the Minister was now going to take over. Where in this legislation did he read that? Where in the policy of this party did the hon. member read that the hon. the Minister is going to take over, that the hon. the Minister is now going to govern 2¼ million Coloureds? The hon. member went further. He levelled the scandalous accusation that we on this side of the House are depriving people of rights. I want to tell the hon. member that what the hon. the Prime Minister said during the no-confidence debate in this House, will be carried out. He will honour his undertaking and this side of the House will carry it out. The Bill before this House alters nothing whatsoever in the speech by the hon. the Prime Minister.

The hon. member wants to know where we are going. We have a definite course that we are following. That course has often been stated. While following that course we shall make the necessary adjustments and we shall follow that course together. I, in turn, should like to ask the hon. member where he is going. I can very well understand that hon. members opposite say that we have come to the end of the road, because that is what the United Party and the other parties on that side would very much like to have occur. But I want to tell them that the CRC will still be there and we shall still be following this course long after the United Party—let alone the Progressive Party—has gone to its grave.

Where is that stated in the Bill?

I am coming to the Bill, but first that hon. member must hear the truth for once. Mr. Speaker, all that this Bill envisages is progress, not interference. We do not want to interfere in the activities of the CRC; we do not want to interfere in the politics of the Coloureds, but if a Government is worth its salt— and this Government wants to be that—then it has to ensure that there will be progress, and in particular, continuation of essential services. Sir, those essential services must be provided in respect of 2¼ million people and this Government will not allow chaos to develop in South Africa. That is why what we have here is purely an administrative measure which does not give the hon. the Minister any other power. This Bill does not make the Minister the leader of the CRC.

It comes very close to doing so.

This Bill in no way derogates from the powers of the CRC. This Bill is a necessity and it is necessary for the sake of administrative order.

What are you afraid of?

I am not afraid, but I shall tell the hon. member what could happen and that is what we are afraid of. Sir, on 31 March 1974, more than 20 000 teachers were employed at schools for Coloured children. What would happen if there were an administrative strike, if things were to go wrong on the administrative level and if these people did not receive their salaries? Would that hon. member be satisfied to work without a salary for three or four months? What about all the appointments and the recommendations that have to be made in those schools? It is the duty of this Government, as far as the education and training of children is concerned, to see to it that that work will continue. Sir, we have come up with this Bill because what is at issue here is the interests of over 600 000 Coloured schoolchildren. We cannot allow these schools to be closed for a time; this could happen, and that is why this sound measure is being adopted in the interests of the Coloured school children. It is the right of this Government to ensure that Coloured education will continue. Sir, take the field of social welfare and pensions. During the financial year ended 31 July 1974 there were 108 000 Coloureds who were receiving pensions; these included old age pensions, pensions for the blind, pensions for war veterans and the disability grant. During that financial year R27½ million was paid out to these people. Do hon. members opposite, who are so concerned about pensions when the Budget of the Central Government, the Railway Budget and the Post Office Budget are before the House, want these 108 000 pensioners not to receive their pensions for three or, four months? Do they realize What terrible chaos would ensue and the extreme distress these people would be caused? Sir, this party and this Government stand for order. It is at the helm of affairs and it has to ensure that order is maintained in South Africa. We shall not allow administrative disorder, which could have serious consequences, to develop. It is the duty of this Government to do so. Sir, this Bill is essential because it concerns the interests and the welfare of people. Hon. members opposite are so vociferous about human rights, and when people are involved in this way, then they say that we are committing political fraud. Sir, are we committing political fraud when we ensure that the necessary administrative steps are taken in the interests of people? Is that political fraud? No, we are here to assist people and to ensure that their continued survival is assured. The hon. members clutch at the time of introduction of the Bill and accuse us of supposedly having committed political fraud. How can one commit political fraud on the day of the election if one introduces a measure at 2 o’clock in the afternoon? Most of those people had already been to the polling booths and others were at their places of employment. A report of this nature does not get to all the voters so quickly. This was done precisely because we did not want to influence the parties, precisely because we did not want to influence the voters. [Interjections.] If this had been done a week or two before the time, then it would have had an impact. If we had done it subsequently, hon. members could have said that we were doing it to prejudice a party. But on election day? No, I do not believe that argument, nor do I believe that the Labour Party or the Federal Party will agree with hon. members. A political party that is strong and worth its salt is not so easily influenced. [Interjections.]

It has been contended that we have come to the end of the road. We have not come to the end of the road or to the end of the policy of the National Party. That policy is merely developing and I am very grateful towards the leader of the Labour Party for having spoken like a responsible leader over the weekend. I wish hon. members would go and learn from that leader. Like a responsible leader, he stated: “I have made myself eligible for election to the CRC; we are proceeding and I am willing to talk.” That leader is fully entitled to do so. That party is fully entitled to put its standpoint. The policy of the National Party can be taken further by means of dialogue. It is not the policy of the National Party that has changed. This Bill does not change our policy. You know our policy. It has been very clearly stated through the years, and our policy is not to give the Coloureds representation in this Parliament, but to give them their own representative council which will be developed in the course of time. [Interjections.]

This afternoon hon. members are employing the argument that so many voters voted for the CRC during the recent election and that they rejected the policy of the National Party. Now I want to tell the hon. members that they must take into account the 50,7% of the votes cast on 24 April last year which put this Government in power and put it here to carry out this policy. Do hon. members want that to be cancelled out?

Order! The hon. member is now going too far in the discussion of the policy in regard to the Coloureds.

I am coming back, Sir.

Keep to your text.

No, I wish I could have had a text for that hon. member; then I should have been able to ply him with arguments far more effectively. This is not the end of the CRC, as hon. members want to maintain. I believe this afternoon that the CRC will reach its final stage of development. We are not, through this measure, expressing a lack of confidence in the party that is now in power. On the contrary. I want to convey my sincere congratulations to the Labour Party on their victory, and while I am congratulating them, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Umhlatuzana, too, on his second election in one election. We have full confidence in the Labour Party. They are the party that won the election. They are the party that will come to power. They are the party in whose hands the government is now being placed. They have been elected.

Do not be hypocritical.

Order! Did the hon. member say that the hon. member was hypocritical?

Sir, I withdraw it.

Sir, this afternoon I have the faith and the confidence in the realism of the Labour Party and its members to believe that they will make a great success of the CRC. I accept that as a political party they will not always agree with us. I accept that they will approach us in a good spirit and that we shall discuss matters together. I accept that we have not yet followed this road to its end and that we have a great deal of work to do along that road in the future. It will be possible to make progress along that road if there is a greater degree of goodwill between White and Brown in South Africa. But then we must not disturb those relationships; we must instil and cultivate that goodwill among our people. If I am to confine myself to the Western Cape, here where we are living together, here where the greater majority of the Coloureds live, then I see outstanding possibilities for this region. I see its challenges, I see its development …

Order! I think the hon. member is now going too far. The Bill only concerns certain powers which are being vested in the Minister to perform specific functions and duties of the CRC. The hon. member must confine himself to that.

That is why I believe that the CRC will exercise its powers in such a way that there will be full co-operation and that we shall be able to accomplish these things. We must not read into the Bill things which do not exist there. We must not put words into peoples’ mouths. I want to make an appeal that we should follow this road together and co-operate in the interests of South Africa. I am grateful to be able to refer to a report in Die Vaderland of Monday, 24 March, which states: “The right road, Mr. Leon!” I believe that the National Party is on the right track with its policy; I believe that as far as this amendment is concerned we are on the right track; I believe that the Coloureds will accept this as being in their interests and I believe that it will never be necessary for the Minister to exercise those powers because we all have confidence in the people serving in the CRC.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Oudtshoorn made two statements. Firstly he made the statement that people are more concerned about socio-economic matters than about politics. In reply to this I want to say at once that he does not understand why people are interested in politics. People are interested in politics precisely in order to obtain socio-economic rights. One of the reasons why the Coloured people are interested in politics is that they have to contend with socio-economic problems in their daily life. The second point he made was that in his opinion this legislation is necessary because children have to continue going to school and because the teachers must continue to receive their salaries. What is very important and interesting is that if we look back to 2 June 1972, when the Coloured Representative Council Act was amended, giving certain powers to the Government to do certain things, we find that precisely the same statement was made then. I want to quote from Hansard, 1972, column 8801. The hon. member who was speaking was the then hon. member for Malmesbury, a certain Mr. Van Staden. He said that the legislation was necessary for the following reason—

†At that time then a law was introduced to achieve that purpose and now it is said that this Bill has to be introduced to achieve the identical purpose. The hon. member is obviously quite wrong in alleging that that is why this Bill is required on this occasion.

I think the most significant part of this debate today is a matter which nobody has as yet mentioned, viz. that we here as Whites, elected by Whites to a White Parliament, are debating the future of the Coloured people while not a single representative of the Coloured people sits here with us in order to participate in this debate. This is what will strike the Coloured people; this is what will strike all people of colour in South, Africa; this is what will strike the people in Africa as a whole; this is what will be discussed in the world —that we here as Whites take it upon ourselves solely to debate the future of the Coloured people of South Africa while they have no part in the decision-making process which, in fact, is taking place here.

I think the legislation before us needs to be tested as to whether the powers which the Minister seeks are either required by him or are desirable for him to have and should be given to him in the form in which he has asked for them. Let us go back a little and have a look at the history of the CRC and its elections. When the Labour Party, in which the hon. member for Oudtshoorn now says he has every confidence and in which the hon. member for Piketberg who spoke a few minutes before appears to have no confidence at all, won the election it was frustrated of its victory by the nominations that were made by the hon. the Minister at the time. We have now had another election and the Government now speaks of confidence in the Labour Party. Why? Because now it does not matter how many people they nominate, the Labour Party has a majority in the CRC. The Labour Party has now obtained an absolute majority irrespective of what nominations can be made. What does that express as far as the will of the Coloured people is concerned? In the first place, let us look back on the registration of voters. Less than half of the Coloured people came to be registered as voters. Let us look at the election itself. Less than half the people bothered to come and vote in this election. If we look at those who voted, less than a quarter million, there were over 150 000 who voted for the labour party which obtained a mandate from their people. The Nationalist Party has often spoken in this House about the mandates which they have obtained and what they must carry out in this House. But what mandate did the Labour Party obtain in the last election? In the first place, it obtained a mandate to oppose apartheid or separate development. In the second place, it obtained a mandate to obtain for its own people the rights of citizenship in the land they were born in and the land in which they grew up. They obtained a mandate from their own people that they should obtain representation in the highest legislative body of this country, namely this Parliament. I believe that is the view of the Coloured people as a whole and this is their approach to what their political position in South Africa should be.

Let us go back to the Nationalist Party and its alleged mandates. Have they in fact a mandate for the type of separate development that they are applying? I want to say here again today to the hon. the Minister that if he has confidence in the fact that the White people of South Africa believe as he does that he should get this sort of power and that he should keep the Coloured people out of this Parliament, he should in fact go to the people and hold a referendum. He will then be surprised, because the White people will in fact support the Coloured people being in this Parliament. I challenge him to bold such a referendum, because the result of that referendum will show that the attitude of the Whites is not as verkramp as the attitude of the hon. members who sit on that side of the House. But let us take Nationalist Party policy and let us seek to analyse it logically. Firstly, the CRC is part of their policy. If it is part of their policy they must accept that particular council irrespective of who is in power in that council. If the Coloured people are, in accordance with their dictates, entitled to run their own affairs, the Nationalist Party must accept that they must do what they get a mandate to do and what they think is right should be done. It is only to their voters that they must in fact give an account. The Nationalist Party must accept what is done in the CRC irrespective of whether they like what is done there or not. That is the major lesson they must learn if their own policy is to be applied. But there is a tremendous difference between the image of Nationalist policy and the reality of Nationalist policy. Let me give the House an example. The hon. the Prime Minister has claimed repeatedly in this House and outside that the Coloured people are entitled to exercise their own sovereignty. In fact, the hon. member for Piketberg said only a few minutes ago “What have you against Coloureds ruling themselves?” But what does exercising your own sovereignty mean? Let me tell hon. members what it means in the words of the hon. the Minister who is in charge of this Bill. In his language it means “Die Regering is die finale outoriteit ten opsigte van die Kleurlingbevolking”. Is that not baaskap? How can he say that people are ruling themselves, are entitled to rule themselves and are entitled to have sovereignty over themselves when he is on record as saying, not years ago, but a matter of a couple of days ago, that “Die Regering is die finale outoriteit ten opsigte van die Kleurlingbevolking”? That does not mean that they are to have sovereignty or that they are entitled to govern themselves. This is not anything except pure and simple Blanke-baasskap as we have always known it from 1948 onwards.

I should like to hear the hon. the Minister on the subject of the promise that was given to the Coloured people by the late Dr. Verwoerd in 1961 and which was echoed again by the present Prime Minister. This 10-year period seems to be a very long one, or else it seems we are employing a new calendar, because something seems to be going amiss in this regard. One thing has been made very clear by this piece of legislation and the election result with which this piece of legislation is very clearly connected, and that is that separate development as Nationalist Party policy is not a system which can now be said to be applied with the consent of the Coloured people. It is clearly being applied against the overall will of the Coloured people as such.

The issue of consultation has been raised, and I pertinently want to raise the issue again. Did the hon. the Minister hold consultations? If he did hold consultations, with whom did he do so? Did he consult with the leaders of the labour Party? Did he consult with people who have now been elected in this election in order to find out what their views on this matter are? Did he ask them whether it was necessary to have this legislation? The hon. member for Oudtshoorn, who spoke just a moment ago, said that he has every confidence in the Labour Party. If there is every confidence in the Labour Party, why then this piece of legislation? There is a reason for this legislation. It is a very clear reason which the hon. the Minister and the Coloured people know, and which we in this House know whether we like it or not, and that is that the Coloured people of South Africa do not, in fact, want the present CRC. They do not want it in this form. They want representation in this House, they want to be regarded as citizens of this country, they want to have the rights of citizens of this country, they want the right to vote and they want to be able to sit in this particular House. But with great respect, what is wrong with an attitude which now states: “We will use the platform which a system of which we disapprove has given to us in order to advocate the abolition of that system and the creation of something which is more meaningful and more real and which respects our rights as citizens in the country of our birth”? Members on the other side have said that if Mr. Leon wants to come and talk he is welcome to do so. Is dialogue enough, however? Is it enough just to talk? Is paternalism enough? Is tokenism enough? Are we not reaching a stage where participation is required and where dialogue and talk must lead to something, where there must be action as a result of this talk? It is not enough to say that people should sit down and talk when nothing happens as a result of all the talk.

There is a further question I should like to put to the hon. the Minister. A number of people have to be nominated to the council. He has said, if he has been correctly reported, that he does not intend to nominate only people who are against the Labour Party. Let me ask him, however, whether he intends to consult the majority party as to who should be nominated to this council. Does he intend, in fact, to have a system of proportional nomination so that the balance in the council is not changed, or does he intend to go against the express will of the Coloured people and irrespective of any tokenism decide to nominate in a fashion which will change the voting pattern if not the control in that council? I think that he owes this House an answer to that. The second matter was —and it was put a little earlier by the hon. member for Piketberg in another form— that the leader of the Labour Party had asked to be chairman of the Executive Committee. I think that he needs to tell us whether he believes that the party which is in control, should have all the seats on the Executive Committee including the chairmanship. Take for example a much lower and less important body, even though it is important in the context. The Nationalist Party adopted an attitude in Johannesburg where they said that they wanted the whole of a management committee to belong to one party.

Sour grapes.

It is not sour grapes; it will be sweet wine in two years’ time.

With respect, why do you not answer now whether you believe that in fact an executive committee is similar to a Cabinet and should have that appointment in that context? Let me ask a further question: If there are meetings in regard to the future constitutional development of the Coloured people and the CRC is not accepted as the correct vehicle for this, has the Government a sufficiently open mind to negotiate on a basis that an alternative means will be found for the Coloured people? One thing is clear and that is that you now have two conflicting mandates. You have the alleged mandate of the Nationalist Party, which is a White electorate mandate, and you have the mandate of the Labour Party which is a Coloured people’s mandate. Those two conflict in respect to what the future of the Coloured people should be. If you believe in self-determination, which the Nationalist Party speakers talk about, then it is the will of the Coloured people which should determine their future and they should be taken into account, not merely the decision and the mandate which the Nationalist Party has obtained.

There is no logic in your standpoint.

I want to put another question to the hon. the Minister. What does he think is the effect of this piece of legislation on public opinion in regard to South Africa overseas and on public opinion in Africa? I shall tell you what the opinion will be. The opinion will be that here you have separate development which is the show-piece of the Nationalist Party, where an election has been held and where the leader of the party which has been elected is refused a passport to leave his own country and to come back on it. That is the system that you have and now when that party gets into power, then you pass legislation so that you can exercise all the powers of that legislative body. Do you want to hold this up to the world as the show-piece to show how South Africa is going to solve the relationship problem between races in South Africa? I want to ask you how this will be seen by the people of South Africa. The South African people as such will see this as an example of the frustrations which people have and of the frustrations of people under the system of separate development. Above all, they will see that in the final result it is always the White Parliament which has the final say. To use the hon. the Minister’s own words, he is the final authority, this Parliament is the final authority. So much for believing that there was going to be a degree of real self-determination under the system of separate development! What should be done? I would like to suggest a number of things to the hon. the Minister today.

I think that if he wants to show his goodwill and he does not want to appoint a proportionate number of members of the Labour Party as nominated members, why does he not seek power to abolish the nominated members altogether and to make this a fully elected body?

How do you do that?

It is very easy. If you do not know how to do it, it means that, one section has to be deleted from the Act, viz. part of section 1. It is very simple. You simply delete it. It is the easiest thing to do.

The second point is that after having done that, it is quite clear that he should offer the chairmanship of that council to the leader of the party which holds the majority in that council. The third thing that he should do is that he should sit down with the leaders of the majority party and review the powers of the CRC so as to make it a more meaningful body—to give it more teeth, as has been suggested. The fourth thing which I think should be done, is that the socio-economic uplift of the Coloured people should be accelerated. We should have some immediate action in this regard and in fact should expidite the steps that need to be taken. The fifth thing that needs to be done is that a constitutional conference should be called in order to consider the entire position of the relationship between the Coloured people and the remaining people in South Africa so as to determine the future of the Coloured people. That can only be done at a proper constitutional conference; it cannot merely be done through casual discussions which take place.

May I just for a moment turn to the wording of the Bill itself? If we look at the proposed new section 22A, we see that it says: “If the Minister is satisfied that the chairman of the executive … etc.”. That means that he is the final arbiter; he can decide whether he is satisfied or not. In the old legislation it had to be a matter of fact as to whether the budget had or had not been passed. Now it is for the Minister to decide whether or not he is satisfied that a person has been doing his particular job properly. The Minister may merely be dissatisfied with the manner in which the job is performed. He will still be able to exercise his powers in that connection. The Bill also says that the Minister may authorize other persons to exercise that power. In other words, he may take away the powers of the council, of the executive and of the chairman at his own whim depending on whether he is satisfied or not. He can then either exercise these powers himself or, alternatively, decide to give these powers to someone else. If this is not a potential weapon for the destruction of the whole edifice of separate development in regard to the Coloured people, I do not know what in fact is.

We have considered very carefully what we believe our attitude to this piece of legislation should be. Whereas in the normal course of events we would have no hesitation in voting for a proposal that this Bill be read this day six months, we feel that this legislation represents so serious a blow to race relations in South Africa and to South Africa’s international image that we would like to place this on record. Consequently, I move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, while listening to the hon. member for Yeoville, I was reminded of the note written by an English clergyman in the margin of his sermon. The note read: “Yell like anything, argument very weak.” [Interjections.] There is another word that rhymes with that, but I shall leave it to the hon. member to find it for himself. The hon. member made quite a number of statements here. For example, he said that he wanted a referendum on this matter. I do not know whether he wants everyone to take part in it. I do not know whether he wants to include Capt. Buthelezi’s people in his referendum as well. However, if he wants to have a referendum of the White voters of South Africa, then surely he ought to know that the White voters have repeatedly expressed themselves, with vigour and deep conviction, in regard to this very point, as one of the points of policy in the politics of South Africa, viz. on separate development and representation, a separate Parliament for the Coloureds. Surely we have expressed ourselves on that score. It is because he reminded me of that that I, again, remind him of what occurred in history. The hon. member states that we are debating on the future of the Coloureds in their absence. However, the point is that the hon. member wants the Coloureds to come and sit here and have a say, not only in regard to their own affairs. They must also be able to debate on the future and the interests of the White man. It is in this regard that the National Party states: “That will be the day! We exclude that.”

Then you decide about them.

The hon. member must not speak so loudly. He has more voice than content.

The hon. member also spoke about the views and the self-determination of the Coloureds. However, the members of his party do not want to give the Coloureds the chance to arrive at the formulation of any views their own, or to give expression in their own way to their own views and self-determination. The hon. member always wants to confuse the whole issue. That is what the hon. member over there in the back bench wants. This side of the House states that the orderly way in South Africa is for the White man to be given the opportunity, and to remain in a position, to run his own affairs and, while we are in power and exercise control, to create for these people the opportunity of arriving at their own definition of who they are, what they want and where they want to go. That is our approach and the voters have given this party a mandate to carry it out.

The hon. member for Sea Point said that the Coloureds saw the CRC as a symbol of rejection by the Whites. Why did he make a statement like that? Does the existence of separate schools for those people, where they have 20 000 Coloured teachers of their own, constitute rejection by the Whites? The hon. member should not talk so loudly. He is a man who objects to a mixed swimming bath in his own constituency. Is that not rejection of, discrimination against and an insult of these people? In this way one’s own remarks and arguments can catch up with one, catch one and destroy one. That party runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds and does not know what it wants.

That is not the situation and you know it.

Oh, is the swimming bath open now?

The hon. member said that the election outcome was a rejection of apartheid. Is it also a rejection of separate schools for Coloureds? Is it a rejection of the fact that these people find a spiritual home in their own churches among their own members with their own clergymen? This is a way of life and is organized at various levels in social and religious life where the fact that what one has here is a community that distinguishes itself from the Whites and from the various Black peoples, finds expression. They see their political future in a particular way and in a particular direction. It is in respect of that direction, in which its political self-determination can find expression, that we are debating with each other and it is in regard to that that we on this side of the House say that we are not prepared to enter a debate in which other peoples debate together on the future of the White man and on his right to self-determination. We are not prepared to do that.

The hon. members have failed to see the entire background and reason for this legislation. As the hon. member for Piketberg indicated, the fact of the matter is that we are dealing here with certain statements by the leaders of the Labour Party through the years. For example, there have been the threats to destroy the CRC. They are on record. Only this morning they appeared on the front pages of certain newspapers. Even after the leader of the Labour Party had intimated that he was prepared to conduct a discussion, to conduct dialogue with the Prime Minister, he said in the same breath that he accepted the CRC, but only as a medium to destroy itself, viz. from within. In this way one comes across the dilemma in the Labour Party’s approach. On the one hand they realize that if they do what they said they were going to do during the election campaing, viz. destroy the CRC, they would have to resign their seats, and an election would have to be held all over again. But there is still a degree of responsibility to the extent that they realize that they have been put in power by their voters and they are now prepared to conduct a discussion with the Prime Minister. It does not matter whether they agree with him; they are at least prepared to conduct dialogue with him, and when that happens, then we are on our way because what will happen then will be precisely what those hon. members hold out as a prospect. I think it was the hon. member for Yeoville who said that we should have to speak to each other as man to man. As I say, what would happen then would be precisely what those hon. members hold out as a prospect, because then it would be a case of a man coming to talk, in his own right and on behalf of his people, to a man who, in his own right, represents and expresses and interprets the interests of his people; then it is man to man. The leader of the Labour Party is now having himself elected as leader of the CRC; he is changing his threat and is now accepting the CRC as an instrument to destroy the CRC. Even in the most recent statements by the leader of that party there is a contradiction, and it is as a result of that very contradiction, and the threat that is still inherent in his statements now that he has declared himself to be prepared to serve as leader of the CRC, that the Government feels that it wants to place it beyond all doubt that chaos will not develop in the administration, that hardship will not be caused to people concerned with this and that is the reason for this legislation as introduced by the hon. the Minister. Sir, the dilemma of the leader of the Labour Party is that he is rejecting a Coloured grouping and organization that belongs to the Coloureds alone. He wants to run away from his own people, but at the same time he wants to be the mouthpiece of those people when he comes to talk to the leader of the White man. This is the dilemma he faces and he will be unable to escape it unless he accepts the responsibility that has now been placed on him and by virtue of that responsibility, discusses matters with the authoritative body on this side in order to interpret the interests and the opinions of his people.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, it is very clear what this Bill does not envisage. It in no way envisages contesting the outcome of the election. If hon. members opposite were afraid that we would contest the outcome of the election, then we just want to say that that is not our intention and that that does not form part of our policy. An election took place; the Labour members were elected in a majority and we accept that as the verdict of the Coloured electorate. The Labour Party won the election; it was the Coloured voters who elected Coloureds as their representatives. I think it would be in the interests of good relations in South Africa if everyone were to accept that in this election, Coloured voters elected Coloureds as their representatives to run their affairs and, if necessary, to engage in discussion with this Parliament.

A second matter, Sir, which this Bill does not envisage is taking over the legislative powers of the legally elected members of the CRC, and that the hon. the Minister stated very clearly in his speech. We by no means intend to do what those hon. members want to impute to us, namely that we ourselves now want to wring the neck of separate development. To hon. members opposite who are so terribly afraid that our image abroad would suffer as a result, I want to state that it is our very intention and striving that separate development should succeed, and that is why we want these legally elected members of the CRC to accept their responsibility and to carry out their duties in the interests of the people who elected them—their own people. We have no desire to do the CRC’s work for it, nor do we covet the crown that will be placed on the heads of those people when they themselves discharge their responsibility on behalf of their own people.

Nor, Sir, is it in any way the intention to regulate Coloured politics from this Parliament. Hon. members opposite raised a tremendous hue and cry about this as if we wanted to regulate Coloured politics from this side. On the contrary, it is when, owing to certain threats, Coloured politics is in danger of coming to grief within their own sphere, that we have to see to it that the essential things are maintained, as the hon. members for Oudtshoorn and Piketberg indicated here. If there were any question of our wanting to regulate Coloured politics from this Parliament, then we just want to say two things, and one is that this is by no means the policy of the National Party; on the contrary, the policy of this party is specifically that action be taken to promote self-determination both in politics and consistently at the social level of each of the various population groups in South Africa. We do not want to regulate from top to bottom. It is precisely our aim to lead these people towards self-determination, and if hon. members say that that has not happened yet, then I just want to say that Rome was not built in a day. If those hon. members had helped us, if they had not acted as stumbling blocks and hindrances in this regard, then I am convinced that the Coloureds would by this time have been much further along the road to self-determination, and that includes political self-determination.

But there is a second reason thy we do not do this, and that is that we are fully aware of how white and pink liberals in South Africa are rejected by the politically aware non-Whites. They are rejected, and one of the best examples of this is the interference of Nusas and others with Saso. Those non-Whie students simply turned their backs on them because those people are not accepted as guardians or as saviours in a political situation. We are aware of this rejection, and that is why we do not regulate from this side. Nor is it by any means the intention to make it difficult for the Labour Party to govern. On the contrary. It is our very aim that there should be government. That is our approach. We do not want to govern for them. What we want is that there should be government, and if people are totally unwilling to perform the basic functions of government, then, in the interests of those people, we must take certain steps to prevent harm being done, to prevent chaos and disruption.

That is the reason for this legislation. What, then, do we in fact envisage? It has been said repeatedly, and I am therefore just repeating this statement, that this legislation is being introduced for the sake of the welfare of the Coloured population so that, in the event of there being disruption, in the light of the threats that have been uttered, the basic work may go on and the interests of certain groups among the Coloured population will not suffer.

Very generous.

What we want is that the autonomy of the self-determination of the Coloured people should be further extended. We want it to be extended, whereas hon. members opposite have always dangled a carrot under their noses and said: “You can come here and you can have a joint say, not only in regard to your own interests, but also in regard to the interests of the White man.” That is where we draw the line and say that this will not happen. We are not going to implement a sharing of power; we are not going to allow the self-determination of the White man to be subjected to co-determination by other population groups in South Africa. We want the Coloured leaders to take the credit for this and compel the respect of their own people; we want them to realize fully that we do not regard them as an appendage to any people, not of the Black people—and I say this to Mr. Adam Small—nor of the White people. We do not regard them in any way as an appendage, but as people in their own right, a community in its own right, with, its own leaders who may interpret those rights for them and put those rights to the Government that still governs them. [Interjections.] I say that we want the autonomy and self-determination of the Coloureds to be extended. It is unnecessary to point out that the legislation passed by this Government, the establishment of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, has afforded the Coloured people this very opportunity of producing leaders, of producing its own mouthpieces, people capable of interpreting the interests, the rights and the freedoms, the claims, demands and even the grievances, too, of those people. They can come with their grievances. Our people also had many grievances. This may perhaps be a negative expression of one’s self-awareness, but it is nevertheless an expression of one’s self-awareness and it is one way in which one exercises one’s self-determination, by interpreting one’s claims and designating one’s leaders for that purpose. Sir, we want their own administration, which has been built up and which is manned by Coloureds to a very important degree, to escape damage. That is the reason for this legislation. Apart from the teachers, numbering about 20 000, there are also about 3 000 officials in the employ of that administration, and those people serve the interests of their own people. Does the hon. member want this to come to a standstill until such time as the Coloureds have representation in this Parliament?

Order! I must warn hon. members not to repeat arguments. That argument has already been advanced.

I shall abide by your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The matter of the utilization of funds has also been mentioned already, but there is still the matter of local management. Do hon. members want local management, which falls under the jurisdiction of the CRC, to come to a standstill until such time as the Coloureds have representation in this Parliament? Must the Coloureds’ own university be done away with, and must the Coloured rector who was appointed and who is the pride of those people, to be retired and the students distributed among all the other universities?

What we envisage is the prevention of chaos, disruption and hardship. I do not want to expand on this any further, because this argument has already been advanced. If there should be chaos, disruption or hardship, then we shall act in the interests of South Africa, because it is in the interests of South Africa, of everyone in South Africa, that there should be orderly administration of Coloured affairs, too. It is in the interests of good relations between Whites and Coloureds, and between Coloureds and the Black peoples, that there should be a Coloured community practising self-determination and that its own people should accept it and serve it and administer it.

Any community needs its inner driving force and urge for development to be mobilized for the benefit of its own people. What we want to ensure by means of this legislation, is that the efforts made and the opportunities created for Coloureds to administer their own people will not be frustrated but that the inner driving force and urge for development of the Coloured people should be so directed as to be to the benefit and welfare of their own people.

No people can be uplifted by another people if it does not contribute its own share and provide its own leaders, and if its own people do not accept it as theirs. A people cannot develop as a people if it does not accept responsibility for its own welfare and progress, if it does not make its own history, and if it does not want to clear its own road to the future. No people compels the respect of other peoples if it does not have self-respect, if it runs away from itself, if it evades major responsibilities or if it has no appreciation of its own distinguishing characteristics. These are things which we demand for ourselves and they are things which we assume of the other groups in South Africa as well.

Even though it is true that the Federal Party advocates a programme that corresponds to a greater extent with the views of this side of the House and that it lost the election, the fact of the matter is that the Labour Party has come to power. We want to tell those people that we trust that they will display the ability to act in the interests of their own people. Actually we are paying them a compliment by telling them that we refuse to see them as an appendage of any other group in South Africa, but as people in their own right, as a community progressing towards an increasing degree of self-determination. We ask them, then, to use the opportunity of their own parliament in their progress towards that self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, there is not much which the hon. member for Waterberg has said to which I want to reply. He elaborated at length on the refusal of the Government to allow the Coloureds to have representation here, for then they would have a joint say in “the affairs of the Whites”. The hon. member would have been correct if this Parliament had occupied itself exclusively with, the affairs of the Whites. However, this is not and will never be the case.

That is saying a great deal.

That will never be the case, and therefore the hon. member is extremely unreasonable when he demands participation in this Parliament for the White man only. When it comes to the Coloureds, he goes further and does not even want to give them the right to say what they want for themselves. He takes it amiss of the Labour Party for saying that they do not want the CRC. In other words, the hon. member wants to claim a full say for himself as a White, but when the Coloureds express their will and say that they want a different dispensation and not the CRC, that is not good enough either. Even then he steps in and says that as far as that is concerned, too, the will of the Whites must apply. Then he talks of self-determination!

I actually want to come back to the hon. member for Piketberg and a few standpoints which he adopted. The hon. member for Piketberg accused the hon. the Leader of the Opposition of talking nonsense. Let me say at once that I think that was an undignified statement and that I am not going to enter the debate at that level. However, I take the strongest exception to the statement of the hon. member for Piketberg that we are “talking people into” the destruction of the CRC. Where is the evidence for something like that? Our attitude has always been that we are not prepared to force anything onto any population group that it does not want. Whatever a Government does, it will never succeed if it does not do so with the approval of the people for whom it is intended. What is the truth, in reply to the hon. member’s accusation, an accusation for which he is unable to advance any evidence? It is and always has been the standpoint of this side of the House—in fact, it is a part of our declared policy—that as long as the Coloureds want it, they can have a Coloured Persons Council. It is written into the principles of the party for all to see. However, we say at the same time that such a Coloured Persons Representative Council must also be linked to representation in this Parliament. The hon. member for Piketberg went on to say that the result of the election was no consolation for the United Party and that the Labour Party had no sympathy for the United Party. But what has that to do with our standpoint here? It is not of cardinal interest to us, when we consider a Bill and adopt a standpoint in this House, whether the Labour Party or another party is sympathetic towards us. We have only one basic premise, viz. what is best for the future of South Africa. We base our judgment on that. We do not seek party-political advantage, because we cannot get it. The Labour Party does not vote for us and cause us to win seats, Nor can they do so. When we judge a Bill, we judge it strictly according to what we think is in the interests not only of the White man, but also in the interests of the people who are involved in it, and also in the interests of South Africa as a whole.

The Bill which we have before us, is obviously an emergency measure. The misfortune is that the emergency is not among the Coloureds or in the CRC, which is affected by this Bill. There is no evidence that they asked for it, and the hon. the Minister could not even produce evidence that the outgoing executive of the CRC asked for it either. The emergency is not among the Coloureds. The emergency in connection with this Bill is in the Government. The measure is a direct result of the fact that in the handling of Coloured Affairs, the Government is not seeking to carry out the will of the Coloured community, but its own will. The hon. the Minister tried to explain to us what the motive behind this Bill is, He presented his speech very quickly, but I did manage to make at least a few notes of his explanations of why this Bill is before the House. He expressed the fear—one must presume that he was referring here to the Labour Party— that there could be a refusal to submit the estimates to the CRC in the prescribed manner. He spoke of problematical situations which could arise and of the possible refusal by the CRC to carry out instructions issued by the Government. He complained that there were people among the Coloureds who do not want to give recognition to the good things which the Government have done for the Coloureds, He went further and said he was afraid there would be people who would deliberately cause administrative chaos. Other members who spoke after him, spoke of boycotts. The hon. member for Waterberg even tried to conjure up the spectre of the CRC causing the Coloured university to cease functioning. The Coloured university does not fall under the CRC at all. However, I shall leave the matter at that. I want to ask the hon. the Minister in the first place where his evidence is for the reasons which he advanced for the introduction of this Bill. The hon. the Minister has admitted, through the reasons he has furnished, that there is a spirit of resistance to the present CRC. This fear which the hon. the Minister has, cannot be separated from the fact that the Labour Party has just won the election. If he fears that there is resistance, ought the hon. the Minister not to look for its origin and for the actual core of this resistance? Otherwise he cannot judge whether his motives are correct or not. Since 1948, the Government has unceasingly followed a policy of confrontation with the Coloureds. The hon. member for Oudtshoorn and the hon. member for Piketberg said the Labour Party is following a policy of confrontation. In reality it is the Government which has unceasingly followed a policy of confrontation with the Coloureds. This is not the time to go into the long history of this confrontation. Nor do I want to do so. However, we are all aware of its salient features. First there was the protracted confrontation with the Coloureds on their Parliamentary and provincial franchise. There was the persistant confrontation with the apartheid measures which the Government has introduced over the years.

Let us come now to the CRC elections. The confrontation on the franchise was followed, in 1968, by legislation which completely abolished Coloured representation in this House.

Order! The hon. member must obey the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I am only following up the arguments which were raised on the other side. In 1969, we had the election for the new CRC. The Labour Party won with a great majority. However, the next thing they knew, the Government had once again decided on confrontation. The Government packed the Council with members of the minority party and handed the whole administration of the council over to the losing party. Is that not confrontation? Last week the second election of this Coloured Persons Representative Council took place, and this time the result was even more decisively in favour of the Labour Party than in the past. What do we find now? The results were hardly out when the Government decided on a further piece of confrontation, viz. the legislation which is now before us and in which, in fact, the chairman and members of the executive management and the council as a whole are being told …

Now you are inciting them.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw the word “incite”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw it.

… that if they do not manage their own affairs as the Government says they must, the Government will simply do so for them. That is what this legislation means. The hon. the Minister takes powers over everything into his own hands. He excludes legislation, but it is meaningless to exclude legislation, because the CRC cannot introduce an iota of legislation without the permission of the hon. the Minister. That power the hon. the Minister already has. However, he is taking total power over the functions of the CRC into his hands. Members on that side must therefore not speak of self-determination again. If this is the sort of legislation which the Government wants to introduce, there can be no question of self-determination in respect of Coloureds over Coloureds. The spirit of this Bill is that it is the will of the White which also applies in respect of the Coloured community. If this legislation is passed and implemented, we shall arrive at the final farce that the CRC is a Brown doll on the lap of a White ventriloquist. This side of the House cannot accept this under any circumstances. Then it will not in fact be the Labour Party, but the hon. the Minister and the Government which is destroying the CRC. The hon. the Minister asks in all innocence what we must do if the CRC were to refuse to fulfil its functions. Other hon. speakers have asked what we must do if the CRC were to fail to pay the salary cheques of Coloured teachers, pensioners and officials.

Tell us what we must do.

The problem has not yet arisen. I want to add at once that the hon. the Minister already has powers in that regard. But the problem has not arisen yet and it is unlikely that it ever will. Not one leader of a Coloured party has ever indicated that he intends to go so far as not to pay a Coloured teacher his salary. What Coloured leader has said that? No executive of the CRC can go so far as to accept their own salaries as of members of the executive while they refuse to pay their officials, salaries. I want to go further by saying that it is not within the power of any party in the CRC, whether it be the Labour Party or not, to destroy the CRC. It can do nothing more than express the will of the Coloured community. But suppose what the hon. the Minister fears were to happen. The hon. the Minister should then ask himself what gave rise to this, and how the Government can remove the immediate causes. Is it the Coloureds who are being unreasonable, or is it the Government that is being unreasonable? Does the unreasonableness not perhaps lie with the Government? All the Coloured parties, both the Labour Party and the Federal Party, are opposed to the Government’s policy and demand representation in the highest body in the country, where the laws are made which affect them just as much as the Whites. In other words, they are asking nothing more than recognition of citizenship. Is there anyone here who will say that that is unreasonable? If anyone says that that request or that demand is unreasonable, he does not know what the word “unreasonable” means. The possibility of resistance which the hon. the Minister gives as motive for the introduction of this Bill, is not really aimed against the CRC as such. I am convinced that the majority of of the Coloureds are not opposed to the CRC as such as an interim step on the road of political progress. What they do object to, is that the Government regards the CRC as the terminal point of their political progress, while we all know—in spite of what the hon. member for Waterberg tried to say—that the CRC, at its best, will never become more than a pseudo-Parliament with extremely limited functions and will never be able to meet the needs of full citizenship. Our advice to the Government is that it must think of alternatives. I want to give them the advice that they should take the facts of the present situation squarely into consideration and that this matter they should act as a Government of South Africa and not as a Government for the National Party. Their policy of confrontation must make place for a policy of accommodation. The hon. Leader of the Opposition was quite correct when he told the hon. the Minister that if he withdraws the legislation or withholds it, it will help to create a spirit of trust in the present situation. A spirit of trust is a prerequisite for the handling of the situation which has now arisen. After all, the Government must concede that it can make as many laws or devise as many plans as it pleases, but that in the end no system will work if it does not have the co-operation and the approval of the Coloureds. It is of cardinal importance. It will not be successful unless they get the co-operation of the Coloureds. I want to predict that this measure will not be the last one either—but in the long run people cannot be forced to accept what they do not want. Therefore I want to say to the hon. the Minister in the second place that, since the Labour Party won the election decisively, he ought to appoint the leader of that party as chairman of the executive. In addition, he ought to hand over the administration of the CRC to the Labour Party, which is the majority party. As recently happened again in the case of the Johannesburg city council, it has always been the standpoint of that side of the House that the majority party should govern. If the hon. the Minister does not do so in this case as well, he could be accused of applying double standards.

As far as the appointments in the CRC are concerned, I want to say that there is only one principle according to which it can be done, viz. on a proportional basis, i.e. pro rata.

Order! The hon. member is not being relevant now.

Mr. Speaker, I am merely replying to … [Interjections.] I shall respect your ruling, but all the previous speakers spoke very widely on the philosophy and policy in connection with these matters. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Bezuidenhout listened courteously to other hon. members. They must now show him the same courtesy.

If the Government wants to solve the situation which has arisen properly, it has become time for it to indicate that it is prepared to negotiate at some or other time with the Coloured community on suitable representation in this Parliament. I say once more, and with that I content myself: There is no alternative and it will never be possible to find another alternative.

Do you want to prescribe to the Coloureds now?

It is not a question of prescribing to them; that is their standpoint already. The Federal Party is relentless in its adherence to that standpoint, and the votes which that party polled, are also in favour of representation in Parliament. The entire Coloured community stands for that This is something which the Government will never be able to escape from. I believe that our people today are mature enough to allow this. If the Government disputes this, they can put it to the test. It will improve the relations between White and Brown immediately and also strike a powerful blow for the attainment of the ideal of détente in Africa.

I want to conclude with a last thought. On 21 February 1657, the first freehold grants were issued to Whites in the Cape. In other words it is now 318 years ago that the first Whites in South Africa became free citizens in this country. But in the political field, the Coloured is still servant and subordinate, and if this Bill is passed he is even more of a subordinate and servant ever before. Then we are back to the position of complete baaskap. Therefore I believe that, instead of the hon. the Minister proceeding with this Bill, it is time the Coloureds in South Africa are declared free citizens and that a political place be created for them which will meet the requirements of full citizenship.

Mr. Sneaker, you will probably not allow me to cover as wide a field as the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, but I shall nevertheless try to reply to a few statements which he made. Right at the outset I want to say that it is remarkable how the various opposition parties, therefore even the bits and pieces as the hon. member for Durban Point calls them, played to the gallery this afternoon and were in fact bidding against one another to see to what extent they could satisfy certain people who are seated there. It was remarkable that even the hon. member for Sea Point, whose party does not even have a policy as far as the Coloureds are concerned, waxed eloquent in regard to the policy of this side of the House. During the Second Reading debate on the Part Appropriation Bill the Leader of the Progressive Party was asked what their policy in respect of the qualified franchise was. The hon. the Prime Minister then commented that they had no cornerstone, for the one person had said that that was no longer a policy while another had said that they were still considering how to apply it.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Bezuidenhout and say that it is a great pity that this hon. member has again this afternoon displayed such a lack of patriotism towards the Whites in South, Africa. He spoke of self-determination for the Coloureds. I think that if there has ever been a party which has helped these Coloureds along the road to self-determination then it is this Government party, of which I have the honour to be a member. When he speaks of self-determination, I want to ask him whether the Whites in South Africa do not also have the right to determine their own destiny. He said that we were trying to force something upon the Coloureds which they did not want. Should we then as Whites in this country be satisfied to have things forced upon us which we do not want?

I think it has been convincingly explained that this legislation before us is no emergency measure. I do not want to discuss that aspect any further. However, I do want to say this: There is one accepted fact in this country, which has been proved over the years, and that is that South Africa is a multi-national country and not a multi-racial country. We have also frequently said that the Government is helping these people to help themselves. That is why the hon. the Prime Minister came here only las year with the sterling idea of a Cabinet council and a say in statutory bodies. I maintain that we cannot get away from the fact that South Africa is a country of separate peoples. South Africa is a country in which we have separate administrative institutions for each people. We now have a party which has been elected to the CRC as a majority party. They have a majority of votes. We are not unhappy at the fact that the Labour Party has won the election [Interjections.] On the contrary. They have regularly been invited by the hon. the Minister to discuss matters with the Government, and they have refused; we are now looking forward to the day when Mr. Leon will come to discuss matters with the hon. the Prime Minister. He will come, and I want to tell you at this juncture that Mr. Sonny Leon is going to adopt a very responsible standpoint when he discusses matters with the hon. the Prime Minister.

Order! I want to tell the hon. member that I sympathize with him because it would require an artist to say something new at this stage. However, he must return to the Bill now.

Mr. Speaker. I defer to your ruling. It has been said that the CRC is useless. It has been said that the CRC has no role to play. This legislation before us is not intended to deprive the CRC of any authority or to reduce the legislative power of the CRC. Let us admit at once that there are many bodies—and representatives of some of them are sitting in this House—which hope and pray that disintegration will in fact take place. If it were to happen that there are bodies which were to refuse to act in terms of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act the Minister will then be able to take action.

Sir, in whose interest is this Pill? This Bill is in the interests of South Africa as a whole, not only in the interests of the Coloureds who are administred by the CRC. This Bill is in the interests of South Africa as a whole, for there is one thing we must guard against and which we must make it our task to ensure does not happen, and that is that conditions of chaos do not arise in our internal relations. There are people. Sir, who said that Mr. Leon of the Labour Party should confront the Government and that he should refuse to keep the machinery of the CRC oiled and to operate it. Fortunately the hon. gentleman has indicated that he is willing to co-operate. Mr. Speaker, you have tied me down a little with your ruling. The hon. member for Bezuidenhout said: “There will be no confrontation: who says that these people in the CRC will not co-operate?” Sir, when I am rearing my child, I do not wait until he has reached the age of majority before I teach him discipline in life. He must go through the evolutionary process of growth before he comes of age. We admit that we are moving along a course of evolutionary growth, political and otherwise and for that reason I say that this Bill before this House was not introduced because we think that conditions will arise tomorrow or the day after under which the CRC will not be able to operate. This Bill is simply a precautionary measure, just as any parent, in educating his child adopts precautionary measures to ensure that one day, when that child has to stand on his own feet, when he is of age, he will be able to do so firmly and live a responsible life. This Bill is there to ensure that if irresponsible action is taken, no harm will come to the machine of this organization.

Sir, I want to conclude by saying that a great deal of propaganda has been made against this legislation, that a great deal has been written about this legislation, and that a great deal of blood has been sucked out of this legislation. We have had quite a number of political bats who have sucked blood from this legislation, people who have tried to cast suspicion on it, people who have tried to tell the Coloureds: “Do you see, the Whites are not to be trusted; the Whites are playing you false.” What we are doing here this afternoon is simply to make administrative arrangements so that if things go wrong, the Minister will have the power to ensure that the administration of the CRC continues as it has to. Sir, the Government wants to and the Government will ensure that there is orderly administration in the CRC. The Government wants to and the Government will give the Labour Party an opportunity to accept and exercise the responsibility of a majority party. I am confident that there will be sufficiently balanced and positive thinking on the part of many of our Coloured leaders to cause them to refrain from allowing that what has already been achieve through the machinery of the CRC to be broken down and demolished as a result of negativism.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Worcester has spoken in general platitudes concerning this Bill. Every single thing that he said was in fact an argument against the passing of this Bill. One of his arguments was that if you do not support this Bill and if these powers are not given to the Minister, there will be a feeling amongst the Coloured people that the White people have no faith and no confidence. He then went on to deal with the question of South Africa being what he called a “veelvolkige land” and not a “veelrassige land”. Sir, what relevance does that have? Whether you say this country is multi-national or multi-racial, it does not matter, because in both of those terms you acknowledge that the Coloured people are a “volk” or a “nasie”, or whatever you want to call them, within the Republic of South Africa. So long as they are within the Republic of South Africa you have to give them a real stake and a real share in the responsibility and power within the country. And where is there a homeland for these people if they are a separate “volk”? If they had a homeland, one might be able to justify some of what that hon. member said, but this Bill is about more than that. This Bill is about basic, simple democracy, and so long as this Government, while pretending that it has a goal and a policy which are aimed in any way towards accomodating the people of South Africa, and in terms of which the Coloured people are admitted to be a permanent part of South Africa, introduces this kind of legislation, the chances of achieving any kind of accommodation are absolutely nil. But we are talking about basic democracy. This is what the Bill is supposed to be about, what the Act is supposed to be about. In terms of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act, democracy is supposed to be being given to the Coloured people. How is it that the hon. the Minister comes here today and presents a Bill like this in the circumstances in which he did? The CRC by itself has failed to produce any meaningful answers to the legitimate aspirations of the Coloured people. It has completely failed. If that were not so, then the Federal Party would have been re-elected, because it was the Federal Party which got the support it did in the last election on the basis that it was a party which was prepared to follow Government policy and was prepared to use the CRC for that purpose, and it failed to deliver the goods. That is one of the reasons why we find today that the Federal Party suffered a monumental defeat. They lost votes as compared with the votes cast last time. The Labour Party gained enormously on the votes which were cast last time. The other factor was that there was an enormous amount, a huge proportion, of the voters who abstained from voting because such was their lack of confidence in the CRC as that CRC was being administered. What the hon. the Minister is in effect saying in this Bill is this: “This CRC can work only if we have a party in power in that CRC with certain principles. Once you get a party with different principles, it cannot work, and I must take over the powers in every respect, in respect of the council, in respect of the executive, and in respect of the chairman of the executive.” Sir, the whole operation is a panic operation. It is like saying “boo” to a goose and you see them all flying. What happens is that Sonny Leon says “boo” and the hon. the Minister scatters in a panic like a chicken with its head chopped off.

What you are saying, is irresponsible.

The Minister is the one who is being irresponsible. I am not sure that this Government is not in fact being reckless in respect of race relations in introducing this Bill at this stage. The hon. member for Piketberg—I am sorry that he is not here—attacked the Coloured Labour Party and Sonny Leon and all the things that they said, but they won the election. They are now entitled to be the government. Despite that the hon. the Minister brings the Bill here without having had any consultation with the party that is entitled to be the government in the CRC. The hon. member for Piketberg as well on the same refrain says that the Nationalist Government wants the Coloureds to govern themselves in all matters that concern them. That is their objective. Nevertheless they are afraid that the Coloured people about whom he spoke will boycott the only constitutional instrument which this Government is prepared to give them. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he thinks that the CRC is going to have any chance of working or whether he thinks that he is not going to use the powers that he wants to take in this Bill all the time unless he squares up to what the hon. member for Worcester said and what the hon. member for Piketberg said, and that is to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Coloured people and to recognize them as South African citizens who have a right to a voice and a sharing in the determination of those matters which concern the Coloured people in a central government body, whatever that might be. The hon. the Minister must face up to the fact that you cannot have two sovereign Parliaments within one country. You cannot have a Coloured sovereign Parliament and a White sovereign Parliament in one country.

Why not?

Because the word “sovereignty” excludes having two. Therefore you have one and the Coloureds are entitled to a share and a say in the sovereign body as well, whatever that might be.

Order! The hon. member has made his point in that respect. I will not allow a general policy discussion.

The hon. the Minister has not told us yet, nor has anyone else in this debate, why he introduced the Bill on the day that he did. He introduced the Bill immediately after polling took place in the CRC election. Why did he introduce it then? The hon. the Minister has not told us this, and no one else has given us any idea why. He has not told us why he did not consult the Labour Party and no one else has bothered to tell us why. Nothing can be more calculated to discourage dialogue and détente in South Africa than the production and presentation of this Bill here today. Dialogue is more important than anything else at the moment in our country and in Capricorn Africa. I think that the session has indicated this already, viz. that everything has been overshadowed by the movements towards détente in Capricorn Africa by this Government, or should I say by the hon. the Prime Minister.

Order! That point has been made ad nauseam.

Yes, but what I want to say is that dialogue not only involves good faith, but dialogue in South Africa is in fact necessary to provide good faith and trust in one another’s objectives, that is to say the objectives of the White people, the Coloured people, the Indian people and the African people. That is its object. Indeed, it is the Government’s duty to provide this goodwill between the race groups through dialogue. If one cannot achieve this with the Coloured people in South Africa, with whom can one achieve it? If the Government cannot achieve it with the Coloured people, with what other race group can the Government achieve dialogue, let alone accord? The hon. the Minister, in introducing this Bill, has probably prevented himself and the Government from having the necessary dialogue which will lead to some solution based upon accord on both sides. In introducing this Bill the hon. the Minister is in danger of destroying—and if it is passed will destroy—the very purpose of the Act it seeks to amend. The very purpose of the Act this Bill seeks to amend is that the Coloured people should themselves administer and legislate in respect of their own affairs. If this Bill is to be passed, can anyone on that side of the House tell me what is to become of self-determination? What then, indeed, of separate development? If the hon. member for Pretoria Central would stop muttering into his tie and make a speech, if he has a contribution to make to this debate. I would be delighted to hear what he has to say. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Pretoria Central is now making too many interjections.

Furthermore, in two paragraphs this Bill will do more damage to race relations than anything I can think of that has been introduced by this Government in the last few years. An unnecessary deliberate act at this stage will do untold damage to race relations. What it is going to do, and this is the problem, is that it is going to undermine any trust there is in White people. I very much regret to say that the Coloureds, Blacks and indeed some Indians regard the White people as one and they regard the Government as representing the White people. It is going to produce a lack of trust which this Government is going to feel in many other fields, not only in the field of Coloured relations, but also in the field of Indian relations and Black relations. At a time when we have an executive committee which was elected by a Federal Party majority in the CRC, we hear nothing from the hon. the Minister, when introducing a Bill like this, to say that he is going to attempt to call the CRC together as soon as possible so that a new executive, which has the confidence of the council, can be appointed. The Minister goes ahead before any executive committee has been elected and he is doing nothing to speed up matters; he is walking straight into this thing, not even knowing what might happen at that council meeting. This adds to the insult and the farce of this Government’s attitude. In the meantime the executive committee, elected by a now defunct CRC has, in fact, in terms of the Act, the power to carry on the functions of the CRC while it is not sitting. For how much longer must this go on? Is the hon. gentleman going to call an early meeting of the CRC so that the whole question can be resolved? No, there is no indication of this. The situation gets worse, however. The Act applies to South African citizens. One of the qualifications to vote, apart from being a Coloured person, is South African citizenship. If the hon. the Minister’s attitude towards South African citizens, which the Act acknowledges them to be, is going to be the attitude embodied in this Bill, I do not think the hon. the Minister can expect anyone to believe anything he says about the Government’s intentions in the field of race relations with regard to Coloured people, least of all the Coloured people. This is the whole problem. There is an absolute failure and inability on the part of the Government to grasp the essence of the problem, and the essence of this problem is that we are all citizens in one country. We must be sharing this country by some or other formula. There must not be a dishing out of powers, as is done in terms of this Act. The Coloured people must not be told to do only what one wants them to do. Unless there can be fuller participation, when the destinies of all of us are to be determined, there will never be any progress in the field of race relations with the Coloureds. My hon. leader has said that a federal system is what we would like, but if the Government does not adopt it, it is going to be obliged to provide representation in that place which determines the destiny of the Coloured people. That has its dangers in Parliament. The federal system, however, avoids all those dangers. If the hon. the Minister will not face up to that problems, however he is never going to achieve anything through the CRC alone. The Bill gives the hon. the Minister the power to exercise or perform any power, function or duty conferred or imposed by the Act on the council, the executive or the chairman of the executive. One would like to ask him what powers he has in mind that he wants. He already has the power to appropriate moneys. The amendment of 1972 provided that if the council would not appropriate certain money, the Minister could do so. The matter could then be dealt with by the executive. In anticipation of some event then occurring, the Government stated that if the executive did not appropriate the money and allocate it, the Minister would have the power to do so. He therefore has that power now. Having that power, what powers does he now want? He has said that administrative functions are mainly involved. If it is administrative functions that are mainly involved, I would like to ask the hon. the Minister why he is casting his net so wide. Why does he only exclude from those functions, if they are purely administrative, the function of legislation?

The hon. the Minister has said that he will move an amendment in the Committee Stage to the effect that the Bill should exclude the power to legislate so that he will be able to assume all their functions and powers excepting the power to legislate. That is a big deal. Why does this come so suddenly? Does it not indicate that there is a sudden flurry of panic on that side of the House? Somebody said—unfortunately I have forgotten who it was—that the Bill had been conceived a long time ago and that the current elections had nothing to do with it. Here, on the day that we debate the Second Reading of the Bill, the hon. the Minister suddenly says in his opening speech that he will move an amendment to exclude the legislative power. One can only assume that it was done in such a hurry that he had no time to think of that before and that that is the reason why he moves the amendment at this stage. Let met tell the hon. the Minister that, as he ought to know, the practice is that a Minister may put an amendment on the Order Paper before the Second Reading. Then the amendment is printed. He is the only one who is entilled to do so. No one else is. The Bill may then be regarded at the Second Reading as if that amendment were part of the Bill. However, this is not even happening. The amendment is not even on the Order Paper. This is an example of his panic. What about the other powers which he is going to take? Section 20 of the principal Act deals with the general functions of the Council and liaison with the Government. Some of the functions of the council which the Government proposes to give to the hon. the Minister— just to show hon. members how ill-conceived this Bill is and how panic-laden and fright-laden it is—are to advise the Government upon request in regard to all matters affecting the economic, social, educational and political interests of the Coloured people, to make recommendations to the Government in regard to all matters affecting the economic, social, educational and political interests of the Coloured population of the Republic, to make recommendations to the Government in regard to any planning calculated, in the opinion of the council, to promote the best interests of the Coloured population and generally to serve as a link and means of contact and consultation between the Government and the Coloured population. It would be grotesque, in any event, for the hon. the Minister to have the powers to legislate on behalf of the council, but would it not be even more grotesque to have the Bill encompass provisions like the ones we have before us? Does it not further indicate the lack of thought behind this Bill? Does it not indicate that it is a panic measure which the hon. the Minister should give more thought to and on which he should take the advice of my hon. leader by withdrawing the Bill now or by adjourning the debate on this Bill so that he can go and think again and talk to people? This is even more absurd and bizarre because the person whose function it is to make recommendations is the Minister himself. The situation that this amendment is going to bring about, if the hon. the Minister exercises his power, is that there will be no body representing the voice of the Coloured people when the Government wishes to consult with them. This is what the Government anticipates will happen. This body is already controlled. That is the reason why I find this whole Bill so extraordinary. I find it difficult to understand why the hon. the Minister considers it necessary at all. This CRC is supposed to get more and more powers. Ten years ago, when it was constituted, it was thought that ten years hence it would have control of almost all its own affairs. The Government has more restrictive and controlling powers over this council for the Coloured people than it has over any other representative council which was intended to be a fully and properly democratic legislative body. At this stage and in respect of this body this Bill is introduced. Do you realize, Mr. Speaker, that the State President and therefore the Government nominates the chairman of the executive committee? The State President may remove the chairman of the executive committee at any stage. The Government nominates one-third of the members of the council. The Minister, the Secretary for Coloured Affairs or his deputy is entitled to attend and to take part in the meetings of the executive and of the council. Furthermore, no laws can be introduced without the approval of the hon. the Minister and, even if they are passed, they still require the consent of the Government which may send such a Bill back with whatever comments it wants to make. The procedure is that when the council is not in session, the executive exercises the powers. When there are not enough members of the executive to form a quorum of three, the chairman who is appointed and can be fired by the Government at any time, assumes all the powers of the executive. In other words, even at this moment one person, who can be nominated and dismissed by the Government, can carry the can or have all the power if that which the hon. the Minister fears, happens. That being so, why cannot this Bill wait? Why is it so urgent? Of course the Bill could wait if the hon. the Minister in fact wanted to have dialogue with the Coloured people. There is no danger at all of its collapsing. Provision has been made for the money voted by this Parliament to be properly appropriated if there is no one else to do it. Provision has been made for the Government to continue even if the executive resigns, since the Government-appointed chairman can take over. As I understand it, the quorum in respect of the council is only 20. As far as that is concerned, I have no doubt that when the nominations have been made, consideration will be given to having a quorum of 20 Federal Party people. No reason has been advanced why this Bill cannot wait until proper consultation has taken place. There is every reason to believe that, even if the very worst happened, the situation could be contained as the hon. the Minister and other members, who have spoken, have pointed out. The introduction of this Bill is a clumsy, capricious action on the part of this Government, an action which can only do race relations, our international image, our good sense and our own bona fides in respect of race relations the utmost harm.

Mr. Speaker, while I sat listening to the hon. member, who has just resumed his seat, my thoughts went far back over a period of 20 years and more in this House. It has been said repeatedly here this afternoon that the introduction of this Bill means the “collapse” of the Government’s policy, that we have reached a deadlock. I still remember well, when we established separate universities— I just want to refer to that—that there was also talk of a “collapse”.

Order! The hon. member must not seek a confrontation with the Chair!

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to arrive at a confrontation with them. The language which they use, is known to us. We know the words “collapse” and “ineenstorting”, which they used in this debate.

What are we dealing with here? We are dealing with a Bill which has to do with an institution in our country. There are no two ways about it. We are dealing here with a political institution for a certain population group. It is a political institution which was created by a Government which has a specific policy. [Interjections.]

You get full marks.

This policy of the Government cannot be changed unless there is a change of Government. Let us get back to earth. This institution, the CRC, will not cease to exist before the National Party ceases to govern. That is the first point which I want to make, and there are no two ways about it.

If I cast a prophetic gaze into the future and consider the possibility of the Opposition coming into power one day to dismantle the CRC, I see no horizon. There will no longer be any horizon, because according to the present political tendency in our country, or projections which one could make for the future, there is no sign which indicates that the CRC can ever cease to exist as a political institution in service of the Coloured population. Look at how the hon. members are seated on the opposite side of the House—there are three groups! Two of them had hardly come together than, according to the latest information, they began to fight.

In the second place we are dealing here with entrenching legislation. This legislation is an attempt to entrench this institution against possible erosion, undermining or obstruction in the execution of its functions. For this reason I call this legislation an attempt at entrenchment. The Government has a mandate to implement its policy, and this particular political institution is based on the Government’s policy construction. This institution has been established in terms of its policy and a mandate which it received, and when the Government has a suspicion that that institution may be assailed, the Government has a duty to entrench the interests, identity and autonomy of that institution. Therefore, this is an entrenching Bill.

In the third place the lifetime of the CRC—and this they must hear—will be the same as the lifetime of the National Party. When I say this, I mean that the National Party will look after this institution in the period of its existence, which will be a long one according to all reasonable political projections, just as it has looked after the other institutions which it has established in the interests of other population groups. We have established universities and educational institutions in spite of vehement opposition from that side of the House. If at that time we had conceded and listened to the arguments which came from that side, none of the Black universities, nor the University of the Western Cape would have existed. At that time they were called “tribal institutions”. They were also called “bush institutions”. The same road will be followed with this political institution, the CRC. They can say what they like, and Mr. Sonny Leon can say what he likes, but he cannot do what he likes, because there is a democratic system in this country in terms of which the Government and the hon. Opposition took part in the election. Whatever might happen, the CRC will execute its functions. Not only will it execute its functions, it will grow and flourish just like the other institutions which were created and developed by the National Party until it is far above the criticism which was levelled at it in the initial stages from the Opposition side. So, too, the CRC will grow out of this morass of criticism into which the Opposition has dragged it today in this debate.

Therefore the first point is that the lifetime of the CRC will be at least as long as the rule of the National Party. I do not know what is going to happen in 10 years’ time. One who is on a road of development, and a creative party, such as the National Party can give no assurance that the CRC will always remain static and in the same political constitutional mould as that in which it is now cast. What I do say, is that as long as the National Party governs, there will be a CRC. Whether or not it will command a greater dispensation of powers in another form on the road of development, or will develop into other canalized power formations, it will continue to exist in the basic concept of the CRC of today and as a political institution which will satisfy and serve the political interests of the Coloureds. It will continue to exist as such. That is the first point, and the first phase of its development.

The second phase I have in fact mentioned already. It does not matter whether the Labour Party is in power and nor does it matter whether the Federal Party is going to take over, but of one thing I am positively certain and that is that it will not be possible to halt development. The National Party, which is the creator of this institution, will not be able to halt that development. I am not even mentioning the Opposition. In our inability to stop any further development, we shall also be burdened with a responsibility. Which responsibility is that?

May I ask the hon. member a question?

Please, sit right there where you are standing. Although it will not be within our means to halt this development, a heavy responsibility will rest on our shoulders to channel that development in the direction we have been given a mandate by the nation to channel it. What will that be?

The hon. member must now return to the subject under discussion.

Yes I shall listen to what you say. In the course of its development, the CRC will bring about greater and closer co-operation between White and Brown in South Africa. That I predict today and therefore I am prepared to entrench its existence. After all, I am not a politician for nothing. I have an ideal and a projection which I make and therefore I am here in Parliament. Therefore I am a politician and I fight for that in which I believe. However much the CRC has been criticized and however halting the progress it makes and however helplessly incapable it may be and appear to be, I believe, as a member of Parliament, as a man who loves my country and as a man who, just like others, wants to see the correct relations developing from the complicated structure of our population, that this institution is worthy of entrenchment. In the third place, I believe that the CRC is the beginning and a contemporary of a totally new political concept which was born after the Second World War, and therefore I want to entrench it. That is why I believe in this Bill and that is why I support it because it is actually a Bill which makes the necessary provision should any interference take place in respect of this institution. And this concept—and this the Opposition has clearly stated by implication today; it runs like a thread through all their arguments—is the concept of political identity which is actually implicitly built into this CRC, a political identity which must grow together with the development of this CRC among the Coloured community. Sir, political identity is valid and is possible within the concept of the National Party’s policy in respect of the Coloureds. There is no country in the world which has political autonomy. I do not say the Coloureds should reach political autonomy. They cannot. We Whites are not even politically autonomous. The mighty America is not even politically autonomous.

Order! The hon. member is going too far now.

Therefore the CRC is worthy of entrenchment because, in the normal development which it will undergo as an institution, it will also give impetus and form to the development of a political concept which makes it possible for the Coloured to find a place for themselves within the framework of the National Party policy as political people with a political identity without their becoming politically autonomous or economically autonomous. It is for this reason that I support this legislation whole-heartedly.

The hon. member for Carletonville is an example to a young politician like myself, and I would like to say right away that I find his idealism, after having been in politics for such a long time, infectious and something to be lauded. I am sure that being an honest politician he would not deny Opposition members their idealism, and if that idealism differs from his own then this is enough ground for political debate. He links his own idealism to the concept of a political identity of a particular group, and I think this is one of the fundamental dilemmas that we are confronted with in a Bill of this nature, namely that this group itself has a very small role to play in the formation of the identity that the Government has in mind for it.

But I do not want to get involved in general arguments, Sir. I should like to turn to some very specific questions that I should like to pose to the hon. the Minister. I should like to pay particular attention to three pieces of legislation, the Transkei Constitution Act of 1963, the Coloured Representative Council Act of 1964 and the present Bill before us. In terms of these three pieces of legislation I should like to pose very specific questions to the hon. the Minister. I hope you will bear with me, Mr. Speaker, if I do so in the language which has predominated on that side of the House when referring to this Bill and to the Coloured population. It is the language—I do not mean it derogatorily—of political paternalism. The members for Waterberg, Piketberg, Oudtshoorn and Worcester and also the hon. member for Carletonville just a short while ago used the language of political paternalism when they defended the Bill. They referred to the Coloured population as a group of people in our society “on the road towards political maturity”. They referred to their responsibility in this development as “that of emancipating them”. They referred to them as “children”. One hon. member on my left said that they were “political children who have to be protected, have to be led on the way to political maturity”.

Why don’t you use the word “guardianship”?

I am quite happy to do so, because that word is part of the language of political paternalism in any case. It infers that some person accepts political responsibility for the political future of another group and creates institutions by means of which the other group presumably will eventually reach maturity. I think this is the whole tenor of the discussion by hon. members on that side of the House.

When one uses a phrase like “political emancipation” or “political maturity” it can only mean one thing both historically and technically, viz. that the group to which it refers will eventually have full political autonomy, that it will eventually be in a position to decide completely independently on its own affairs and that it will be able to govern itself as an independent unit. I am sorry that the hon. member for Carletonville is not present at the moment, because I should have liked to ask him where he envisages the Coloured people will be located in a physical sense when this happens.

Having said this, I pose this question: What kind of instruments, what kind of institutions does the Government use in order to lead the Coloured people to political maturity? Of course, it uses the CRC which is in a sense in terms of the Government’s policy the symbol of the degree of maturity, of the degree of autonomy that the Coloured people at this particular time in their history enjoy as a political entity in South Africa. This institution, viewed in the light of the paternalistic attitude towards the Coloureds—or guardianship attitude as the former Chief Whip prefers—will then presumably reflect the confidence which the Government has at present in the Coloured population as a group, the confidence the Government has in the maturity of the Coloureds on their road to development. It will also reflect the confidence which the Government has in its own policy of political paternalism towards the Coloureds. It will demonstrate to the Government how its town policy is unfolding in this regard. In the language of paternalism the CRC reflects the trust that the father has in his child and in the developmental potential of his child as well as in its own child-rearing practices. It is from this perspective that I think we must look at this Bill. We must also look at the institution which is being affected by the introduction of the Bill.

When we look at the Coloured Representative Council Act of 1964, two things immediately become obvious and these are the questions I should like to pose the hon. the Minister. The first is that the executive powers of this institution are severely circumscribed in terms of section 17. This has been said often enough before and I shall not go into it in detail. The Minister can appoint and dismiss the chairman of the executive of the council in bis own discretion. In terms of section 17(6)(a) certain powers are given to the council powers in respect of finance, local government, pensions, etc. However, in terms of section 22(2A) which is to be deleted if the Bill is enacted, the Minister can in any case, if he wants to, appropriate funds in order to see that these functions are fulfilled. Therefore we can see that from an executive point of view it is highly unlikely that this institution which is supposed to lead the Coloured to a situation of political maturity can take any executive action that would be in conflict with or contrary to the desires of the Minister or this Parliament. In addition— this to me is an interesting situation—we find in the Coloured Representative Council Act of 1964 that in a sense this institution has no independent legislative authority whatsoever, if we look at section 21(2) and section 23(1) we find that no Bill can be passed in that institution without the approval of this House and in particular the State President. Even if a Bill is proposed there it needs the approval of the Minister beforehand. I would like to ask the Minister, because he mentioned the possibility of an amendment to the Bill he is introducing today, what the significance is of withdrawing the particular provision in this Bill which states that he may exercise legislative powers as well. What independent legislative powers does this institution have in any case? I am quite prepared to concede if I have made a mistake. I have studied the Act very carefully and as far as I can see the CRC has no autonomous independent legislative functions or powers in any case. It is dependent in the last analysis on this Parliament for any Bill that passes through that council and, in the last analysis, on the State President, because he has to give his assent to any Bill that is proposed in the CRC. Therefore, to come back to the language of paternalism one could say that the CRC is in a sense a present that a father gives to a child. Let us say it is a toy car that has all the trappings and the pretence of a real motor-car, but it does not have an engine. It has two little pedals the child can pedal if he wants to, with great exertion, and, with the handing over of the present—the introduction of this Bill—the father, or the Minister, tells the child: “Whenever you are naughty I am going to take those pedals away and I am going to play with this car.” This Bill says in effect that for whatever reason … [Interjections.] I am just using the language hon. members have been using right throughout this debate when referring to the Coloured population as political minors. If one looks at the present constitution of the CRC there is no other way of describing the Government’s attitude to the Coloureds than as regarding them as political minors. I do not mean this in an insulting sense, I am using the phrase the hon. ex-Chief Whip used. The Government is the guardian of the Coloureds. One is only the guardian of someone who is a minor. One is not the guardian of someone who is an adult. The Coloured is a political minor in terms of the policy of the present Government. This means, if one looks at the way the CRC is presently constituted, that they are political minors. But with the introduction of this Bill we go a little further. They are no longer political minors, but are now, in a sense, confined to a political orphanage. This Bill appropriates their powers and gives these powers to the Minister. The limited powers the CRC had in any case are now appropriated for the Minister. The Minister, as the representative of this Government—again using the language of paternalism or guardianship of the ex-Chief Whip—is saying: “We do not care how much you scream and shout, we do not care how you try to enforce your demands. We will determine as long as we are in power how you will use that institution, what laws will pass through that institution and what executive decisions you will take in that institution, and you can like it or lump it.” This was also very forcibly stated by the hon. member for Carletonville. This is exactly the language that has been used by hon. members on the other side of the House and I am not saying anything new. [Interjections.] It has been used by every speaker on the other side and that is why I say it is the language of political paternalism. So much for the language of paternalism.

What is the motivation for this Bill? Here again I want to ask the hon. the Minister a few questions. The hon. the Leader of the House castigated the Opposition for kicking up such a fuss about this particular Bill. He said that in the Transkei Constitution Act of 1963 there was a similar provision and asked why the Opposition should get so excited about it now. My first reaction is to say: “So what?” Two wrongs do not make a right. One does not justify a mistake by recounting how many times one has made it in the past. But having looked at the Transkei Constitution Act, I am not sure that the particular reference the hon. the Minister referred to, namely section 71, is in fact comparable to the present Bill we have before us. If one looks at section 71, it is clear that this provision was introduced into the Transkei Constitution Act in an attempt to cope with the transition period. It states that power from this House has to pass to a new political institution and that the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development can, under such circumstances, assume such powers as are necessary in order to ensure that this new institution can function. In other words, I say that if the hon. the Minister refers to that particular section, as he has done, in justification of this Bill, I find myself a bit puzzled. I am puzzled because this Bill is not so much concerned with a transition period. This Bill is doing exactly the opposite. It is transferring power back to this House and is not coping with a period of transition to a new situation by instituting a new political body. If the hon. the Minister would consider looking at section 17 of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act, he will see there, I think, a provision with much closer similarity to section 71 of the Transkei Constitution Act. Section 17(8) of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act in fact states, and I quote—

I would argue, and I would like to know what the hon. the Minister thinks about this, that section 17(8) of the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act bears a greater similarity to section 71 of the Transkei Constitution Act in the sense that it tries to cope with a transition period.

Only in that respect.

Yes. The only difference is this particular phrase, “and if necessary for ensuring the continuation of the administration and government …” I think that is the main difference. [Interjections.] I am glad the hon. the Minister concedes as much. However, why was it not introduced in the first instance when the Coloured Persons Representative Council Act was formulated in 1964, because the Transkei Constitution Act was formulated in 1963 and was available? In that particular Bill, which is now an Act, it was clear at that stage that they were anticipating a transition period. I would now like to know from the hon. the Minister why this provision was not introduced in the first place and why it is necessary now. I say this irrespective of the merits of such a provision in an Act. I am saying that it seems to me that if he cannot explain why this particular provision was not in the original constitution of the CRC, then his motivation that it has now suddenly become necessary because of the concern about the administrative problems confronting the Government does not hold water.

It is my duty now; but it was not my duty then.

Could the Minister at the time not have anticipated his duty when this particular institution was created? Why be a negligent father and not a good father? Why try to fix up the mistakes later on? After all, one must be a proper guardian looking after the interests of the people one is trying to bring to maturity. If I am not mistaken, however, the hon. the Minister has waited for almost 11 years before suddenly realizing that he has somehow omitted a detail in the discipline of this political child which he has adopted against its own wishes. Now he says he must rectify his mistake and, in doing so, refers to a section of the Transkei Constitution Act that I regard as not being applicable. The present Bill goes far wider than that particular section in the Transkei Constitution Act. In fact, it goes far wider than section 17(8) of the present Coloured Persons Representative Council Act as it stands.